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Äbout Google Book Search Google's mission is to organizc the world's Information and to make it univcrsally accessible and uscful. Google Book Search hclps rcadcrs discover the world's books while hclping authors and publishers rcach ncw audicnccs. You can search through the füll icxi of ihis book on the web at |http: //books. google .com/l TRANSFERRED SVARD COLLEl SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Edited, with Notes, BV WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D., FORMBRI.V HBAD MASTBR OF THB HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGB, MASS. triTH ENGRA ViNGS. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARB. 1896. \:?)4?^:^.48 Harvard Hniveröftyi Child MemorfaHibrary» ENGLISH ^LASSICS. Edited by WM. J. ROLFE, Litt. D. Illustrated i6ino, Clotli, 56 cents per volume : Paper, 40 cents per volume. Shakesfuake's Works. The Merchant of Venice. Othello. Julius Caesar. A Midsummer-Nighi's Dreatn. Macbeth. Hamlet. Much Ado about Nothing. Romeo and Juliet- As You Like It. The Tempest. Twelfth Night. The Winter's Tale. King John. Richard II. Henry IV. Henry IV. Henry V. Henry VI. Henry VI. Henry VI. Part I. Part II. Part I. Part II. Part III. Richard III. Henry VlII. King Lear. The Taming of the Shrew. All 's Well that Ends Well. Coriolanus. The Comedy of Errors. Cymbeline. Antony and Cleopatra. Measure for Measiire. Merry Wives of Windsor. Love s Labour 's Lost. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Timon of Athens. Troilus and Cressida. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The Two Noble Kinsmen. Venus and Adunis, Lucrece, etc Sonnets. Titus Andronicus. Goldsmith's Sblkct Poems. Browning's Ski.bct Pobms. Gray's Select Poems. Browning's Sbi-ect Dramas. Minor Poems of John Mii.ton. Macaula y's Lays of Ancirnt Romb Wordsworth's Sblkct Poems. PuBLisMED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. The above tvorks are for sale by all booksellers^ or they will be seni by Harpbr & Brothers to any address on receipt 0/ price as qnoied. If Order ed sent by tnail, 10 per ce nt. sk ould be added to the /krice to cover cost of postage. (Z(Jj^t Y^^^t.-..^^^^SL^^U^''.<^< ^ Copyriftlit. 1883. bv Harpbr & BROTHBiti P R E F A C E. In this voIume, as almost every page of the Introduction and the Notes liears witness, I have been under special obligations to Professor Dow- den's excellent editions of the Sonnets. I have not, however, drawn at all from Part II. of the Introduction to his larger edition (see the foot- note on p. ii), which condenses into some seventy-five pages the entire literature of the Sonnets. For the critical Student this careful risnmk answers a double purpose : as a bibliography of the subject, directing liim to the many books and papers that have been written upon the Son* nets, if he is moved to read any or all of them ; and as a compact and convenient Substitute for these books and papers, if he wants to know their gist and substance without the drudgery of wading through them. I doubt not that the majority of students will be thankful that Professor Dowden has relieved them of the drudgery by compressing many a dull volume or magazine article into a page or a paragraph. I will only add that the text of the Sonnets^ like that of the Poems^ is given without Omission or expurgation. NOTE TO REVISED EDITION OF 1890. For new matter, giving the substance of the latest researches in the his- tory of the Sonnets, see " Addenda," p. 184 fol. Certain changes have also been made in the Introduction (pp. 10, 11, 12) and here and there in the Notes. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets 9 I. Their History 9 II. CrITICAL CoMMENTS ON THE SONNETS 12 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 45 Notes i?S INTRODUCTION SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. The Sonmti were first pubüshed in 1609, wiih the follm ing lille-page (asgiven in ihe fac-simile of 1870): SHAKE-SPEARES | Sonnets. | Neuer before X^ piiiiiecl. I AT LüN-rxiv I By G. Eid for T. T. and are | lo t: Boldc by William AiplfV. ' 160g. lo SHAKESPEARKS SONNE TS. In soine copies the latter part of the imprint reads: "to be solde by lohn Wright^ dwelling | at Christ Church gate. [ 1609." At the end of the volume A Lover's Complaint^zs printed. In 1640 the Sonnets (except Nos. 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, 96, and 126), re-arranged under various titles, with the pieces in The Passionate Filgrim, A Lover's Contplaint, The Phoenix and the Turtle^ the lines " Why should this a desert be," etc. {A, V, Z. iii. 2. 133 fol.), "Take, O take those Ups away," etc. {M,/or M, iv. i. i fol.), and sundry translations from Ovid, evidently not Shakespeare's (see our ed. of V, and A. p. 215), were published with the following title- POEMS : I Written | by | Wil. Shake-speare. | Gent. | Printed at London by Tho, Cotes^ and are | to be sold by lohn Benson, dwelling in | S* Dunstans Church-yard. 1640. There is an introductory address " To the Reader " by Benson, in which he asserts that the poems are "of the same purity the Authour himselfe then living avouched," and that they will be found "seren, cleere and eligantly plaine." He adds that by bringing them "to the perfect view of all men " he is " glad to be serviceable for the con- tinuance of glory to the deserved Author." The Order of the poems in this volume is followed in the editions of Gildon (1710) and of Sewell (1725 and 1728); also in those published by Ewing (1771) and Evans (1775). In all these editions the sonnets mentioned above (18, 19, etc.) are omitted, and 138 and 144 are given in the form in which they appear in The Passionate Pilgrim. The first complete reprint of the Sonnets, after the edi- tion of 1609, appears to have been in the collected edition of Shakespeare's Poems, published by Lintott in 1709 (see our ed. of Venus and Adonis^eXc^ p. 13). The earliest known reference to the Sonnets is in the Palladis Tamia of Meres (cf. M. N, D,^. 9, and C, of E, p. loi), who speaks of them as "his sugred Sonnets among INTRODUCTION. 1 1 bis priuate friends." This was in 1598, and in the next year two of them (138 and 144) were printed in The Fassionate Piigrim. We do not know that any of the others were pub- lished before 1609. They were probably written at inter- vals during many years. " Some, if we were to judge by iheir style, belong to the time when Romeo and yuliet was written. Others — as, for example, 66-74 — echo the sadder tone which is heard in Hamlet and Measure for Mcasure " (Dowden). It is evident that there is a gap of at least three years (see 104) between 99 and the following group (100-112). The theories concerning these interesting poems cannot even be enumerated in the space at our command. "Some have looked on them as one poem ; some as several poems — of groups of sonnets ; some as containing a separate poem in each sonnet. They have been supposed to be written in Shakespeare's own person, or in the character of another, or of several others ; to be autobiographical or heterobio- graphical, or allegorical ; to have been addressed to Lord Southampton, to Sir William Herbert, to his own wife, to Lady Rieh, to his child, to his nephew, to himself, to his muse. The *W. H.' in the dedication has been interpreted as William Herbert, William Hughes, William Hathaway, William Hart (his nephew), William Himself, and Henry Wriothesly " (Fleay).* For our own part, we find it as difficult to believe that some of the Sonnets are autobiographical as that others are not; and all that has been written to prove that 1-126 are all addressed to the same person fails to convince us. It is clear enough that certain sets (like 1-17, for instance) ♦ Some of these theories are discussed in the extracts given below from Dowden*s Introduction to his valuable edition of the Sonnets. For an admirable risume of the entire literature of the subject, see the larger edition of Dowden (London, 1881), Part 11. of the Introduction, pp. 36-110. 12 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. form a regulär series, but that all the poenis are arranged in the Order in which Shakespeare meant to have them is not so clear. There is no evidence that the edition of 1609 was supervised or even authorized by hiin. l'he enigmatical dedication is not his, but the publisher's ; and the arrange- ment of the poems is probably that bf the person who pro- cured them for publication, whoever he may have been. The Order seems to us more like that of a collector — one who knew something of their history, and was interested in get- ting them together for publication — than that of the author, Possibly this collector had his own little theory as to the in- terconnection of some of them, like certain of the modern editors, no one of whom seems on the whole to have been any more successful in classifying them. We fear that bolli their order and the means by which the publisher got posses- sion of them must continue to be among the insoluble prob- lems of literature.* II. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE SONNETS. {,From DowdetCs EdiUoH,\\ The Student of Shakspere is drawn to the Sonnets not alone by their ardour and depth of feeling, their fertility and condensation of thought, their exquisite felicities of phrase, and their frequent beauty of rhythmical movement, but in a peculiar degree by the possibility that here, if nowhere eise, the greatest of English poets may — as Wordsworth puts it — have " unlocked his heart." % It were stränge if his silence, * See also Addeuda, p. 184 fol. below. t The Sonnets of William Shakspere^ edited by Edward Dowden (Lon- don, 1881), p. XV. fol. (also in the larger ed. p. 4 fol.). X Poets differ in the Interpretation of the Sonnets as widely as critics : *' • // 'ith this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart ' once more ! Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less Shakespeare he !" So, Mr. Browning; to whom replies Mr. Swinburne, "No whit the less like Shakespeare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning." Some of INTRODUCTION. deep as thal of the secrets of Nature, never oix lerruplion. The moment, however, we regaid ilie Sonnets as auiobiographical, we find ourselves in ihe presence of doubts and difficullies, exaggerated, it is Irue, by many writers, yet certainly real. If we must escape from Ihein, Uie siniplest mode is \ nssume tlial ihe Sonnels are "the free c imagination " (Delius). It is an ingenious Suggestion i Delius thal certain groups niay be offsets from olher poeti- cal works of Shakspere ; those urging a beautiful youih lo perpetuate his beauty in offspring niay be a derivative from Vtniii anii Adonis ; lliose declaring love for a dark coniplex- ioned wonian may rehandle the iheme set forih in Berowne's passion for the dark Ros.iHiie of Limes Laboiir 's Lost; ihose which lell of a mislress resigned to a friend may be a noi>- dramalic treatment of ihe theme of love and frieiidship pre- sented in the later sceiies of The Two Gentlemm of Verona. Perhaps a few sonnets, as iio and iir, refer lo circuni- stances of Sliakspere's life (Dyce) ; the main body of ihese poems may still be regarded as mere exerclses of the fancy. Such an explanation of ihe Sonnels has llie merit of slm- plicity ; it untres no knots, biit cuis all at a blow ; if ihe col- lection consisls of disconnected exercises of the fancy, we Shelley's feeliiig wiih reference to ihe Sonnets may be guessed froni certain Ihtes lo be fouild amolig the SluilinfoT Efipsyckiäimi and Ca^^ celltd I'iisiii^t (Poetical Works; ed. Fonnan. vol. ii. pp. 391, 3 «hicti niy attention has been callcd by Mr, E, W. Gosse ! Whellier 1d veu 1 an a frleiid or lovet. Lct Ihem rc ThM \t for Ih K w DIdIIri la, Ihe WIM piaphi In MTMiMl the inuraelor. «id bulicd th inr> AE»hon • (WC et ]>|H. »hid WaaaillHi ovelr T eroofol darkn »•, iü the g If-hiddrti and y 14 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. need not try to reconcile discrepancies, nor shape a story, nor ascertain a chronology, nor identify persons. And what indeed was a sonneteer's passion but a painted fire ? What was the form of verse but an exotic curiously trained and tended, in which an artificial sentiment imported from Italy gave perfume and colour to the flower ? And yet, in this as in other forms, the poetry of the time, which possesses an enduring vitality, was not commonly caught out of the air, but — however large the conventional element in it may have been — was born of the union of heart and imagination ; in it real feelings and real experi- ence, submitting to the poetical fashions of the day, were raised to an ideal expression. Spenser wooed and wedded the Elizabeth of his Amoretti, The Astrophel and Stella teils of a veritable tragedy, fatal perhaps to two bright lives and passionate hearts. And what poems of Drummond do we remember as we remember those which record how he loved and lamented Mary Cunningham ? Some students of the Sonnets, who refuse to trace their origin to real incidents of Shakspere's life, allow that they form a connected poem, or at most two connected poems, and these, they assure us, are of deeper significance than any mere poetical exercises can be. They form a stupen- dous allegory ; they express a profound philosophy. The young friend whom Shakspere addresses is in truth the poet's Ideal Seif, or Ideal Manhood, or the Spirit of Beauty, or the Reason, or the Divine Logos ; his dark mistress, whom a prosaic German translator (Jordan) takes for a mulatto or quadroon, is indeed Dramatic Art, or the Catho- lic Church, or the Bride of the Canticles, black but comely. Let US not smile too soon at the pranks of Puck among the critics ; it is more prudent to move apart and feel genlly whether that sleek nole, with fair large ears, may not have been slipped upon our own Shoulders. When we question saner critics why Shakspere's Sonnets TNTROÜtJCTIOI^. iS^I may tiot be at once Dichtung und Wahrheit, poetry and ^B truth, iheir answer amoimts to tliis: Is it likely llial Shak- spere woiild so have rendered extravagant homage to a boy patron? Is il likely that one who so deeply feit ihe moral Order of ihe World would have yielded, as ihe poems to his dark lady acknowlecige, to a vulgär templalion of ihe senses? or, yielding. would have told his shame in verse ? Objectioiis are broiight forward against idenlifying the yoiilh of the Sonneis with Southampton or wiih Pembroke ; ii is pointed out ihat the writer speaks of himself as old, and Ihai in a sonnet published in Shakspere's thiny-fifth year ; here evi-V.--'^ dently he ca nnot have_sBok£ii-.iii his. own person. and if '*' not here, why elsewhere? Finally, it is asserted ihat the ■••'■ poems lack internal harmony ; no real person can be — what Shakspere's friend is described as being — Irne and false, constant and fickle, virtuous and vicious, of hopeful cxpecta- tion, and publicly blanied for careless living. Shakspere speaks of himself as old ; true, biit in Ihc son- net published in The Passionate Pilgrim {138), he speaks as a lover. conirasiing himself, skilled In Ihe lore of llfe, wilh an inexperienced youlh; doubiless at thirty-five he was not a Florizel nor a Ferdinand, In Ihe poems lo his friend, Shakspere is addressing a young man perhaps of twenly years, in the fresh bloom of beauly ; he celebrates with de- light the fioral grace of )'outb, lo which the first louch of time will be a taint ; ihose lines of ihoughl and care, which his own mirror shows, bear wimess to lime's ravage, It is asA poet tiiat Shakspere wriles, and his statistics are ihose not of arithinetic but of poetry. Tbat he should iiave given admiration and love without measure to a youlh highborn, brilliant, accomplished, who singied oul ihe player for peculiar favour, will seem wonder- ful only to ihose who keep a constant guard upon iheir af- fections, and lo Ihose who have no need to keep a guard at all. In ihe Renascence epoch, among natural produ« l6 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS, a time when life ran swift and free, touching with its current high and difficult places, the ardent friendship of man with man was one. To elevate it above niere personal regard a kind of Neo-Platonism was at hand, which represented Beauty and Love incarnated in a human creature as earthly vicegerents of Ihe Divinity. " It was then not uncommon," observes the sober Dyce, "for one man to write verses to another in a strain of such tender affection as fully Warrants US in terming them amatory." Montaigne, not prone to take up extreme positions, writes of his dead Estienne de la Boetie with passionate tenderness which will not hear of moderation. The haughtiest spirit of Italy, Michael Angelo, does homage to the worth and beauty of young Tommaso Cavalieri in such words as these : ** Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain ; E'en as you will I blush and blanch again Freeze in the sun, burn 'ncath a frosty sky, Your will includes and is the lord of mine." The learned Languet writes to young Philip €idney : " Your Portrait I kept with me some hours to feast my eyes on it, but my appetite was rather increased than diminished by the sight." And Sidney to his guardian friend : "The Chief object of my life, next to the everlasting blessedness of heaven, will always be the enjoyment of true friendship, and there you shall have the chiefest place." "Some," Said Jeremy Taylor, "live under the line, and the beams of friendship in that position are imminent and perpendicular." " Some have only a dark day and a long night from him [the Sun], snows and white cattle, a miserable life and a perpet- ual harvest of Catarrhes and Consumptions, apoplexies and dead palsies ; but some have splendid fires and aromatick spices, rieh wines and well-digested fruits, great wit and great courage, because they dwell in his eye and look in his face and are the Courtiers of the Sun, and wait upon him in his Chambers of the East ; just so it is in friend* INTRODUCTION, 17 ship." Was Shakspere less a courtier of the sun than Lan- guet or Michael Angelo ? If we accept the obvious reading of the Sonnets, we must believe that Shakspere at some time of his life was snared by a woman, the reverse of beautiful according to the con- ventional Eh'zabethan Standard — dark - haired, dark - eyed, pale-cheeked (132); skilled in toucbing the virginal (128); skilled also in playing on the heart of man ; who coüld at- tract and repel, irritate and soothe, join reproach with ca- ress (145) ; a woman faithless to her vow in wedlock (152). Through her no calm of joy came to him ; his life ran quicker but more troubled through her spell, and she min- gled Strange bitterness with its waters. Mistress of herseif and of her art^ she turned when it pleased her from the play- er to capture a more distinguished prize, his friend. For a while Shakspere was kept in the torture of doubt and sus- picion ; then confession and tears were offered by the youth. The wound had gone deep into Shakspere's heart : " Love knows it is a greater grief To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury." But, delivering himself from the intemperance of wrath, he could forgive ayoungmanbeguiled and led astray. Through further difficulties and estrangements their friendship trav- elled on to a fortunate repose. The series of sonnets which is its record climbs to a high, sunlit resting- place. The other series, which records his passion for a dark temptress, is a whirl of moral chaos. Whether to dismiss him, or to draw him farther on, the woman had urged upon him the claims of conscience and duty , in the latest sonnets — if this series be arranged in chronological order — Shak- spere's passion, grown bitter and scornful (151, 152), strives, once for all, to defy and wrestle down his better will. Shakspere of the Sonnets is not the Shakspere serenely victorious, infinitely charitable, wise with all wisdom of the intellect and the heart, whom we know through The Tcmptst l8 SHAKESPEARE'S SO NNR TS. and King Henry VIII. He is the Shakspere of Venus anä Adonis and Romeo and ^uitet, on bis way to acquire some of the dark experience of Measure for Measure, and the bitter learning of Troilus and Cressida. Shakspere's writings as- sure US that in the main his eye was fixed on the true ends of life ; but they do not lead us to believe that he was in- accessible to temptations of the senses, the heart, and the imagination. We can only guess the frailty that accompa- nied such strength, the risks that attended such high pow- ers ; immense demands on life, vast ardours, and then the void hour, the deep dejection. There appears to have been a time in his life when the Springs of faith and hope had almost ceased to flow ; and he recovered these not by flying from reality and life, but by driving his shafts deeper tow- ards the centre of things. So Ulysses was transformed into Prospero, worldly wisdom into spiritual insight. Such ideal purity as Milton's was not possessed nor sought by Shakspere; among these sonnets, one or two might be spoken by Mercutio, when his wit of cheveril was stretched to an eil broad. To compensate — Shakspere knew men and women a good deal better than did Milton, and probably no patches of his life are quite as unprofitably ugly as some which disfigured the life of the great idealist. His daughter could love and honour Shakspere's memory. Lamentable it is, if he was taken in the toils, but at least we know that he escaped all toils before the end. May we dare to con- jecture that Cleopatra, queen and courtesan, black from "PhcEbus' amorous pinches," a "lass unparalleled," has some kinship through the imagination with our dark lady of the virginal? "Would I had never seen her," sighs out Antony, and the shrewd onlooker Enobarbus replies, " O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work - which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel." Shakspere did not, in Byron's manner, invite the world to INTHODl'CTlOh: i and his ;riefs. gaze upon his trespass f pieces priiiled by a pirale in 1599, not one of these poems, ' as far as we know, saw t!ie light until long after lliey weie wrilleii, according to ihe most probable clironology, and when in i6og ihe volume emitled " Shake-speares Soiinets" was issued, it liad, tliere is reason 10 believe, neitlier tlie super in tendence nor llie consent of tiie auilior.* Yel tlieir lilerary merils enlitled tliese poems 10 pubücalion, and Shak- spere's verse wss populär. If they were wriuen on fancifid rhemes, why were the Sonnets he!d so long in reserve? If, 011 the other liaiid, they were connected willi real persona, and painfu) incidents, it was natural ihat they should noEj pass beyond ihe private friends of Iheir possessor. But the Sonnets of Siiakspere, it is said, lack inward unityjl Some might well be addressed to Queen Elizabeth, some tO'' Anne Hathaway, some to his boy Hamnet, some to the Earl of Pembroke or ilte Earl of Southampton ; it is impossible to make all lliese poems (1-126) apply to a single person, Difficuities of Ibis kind may perplex a painfui commentatorj but would hardly occur to a lover or a friend living " the heams of friendship are imminent." Tbe youth ad^ dressed by Shakspere is " the master-mistressof his passion" (10) ; summing up the perfections of man and woman, of Helen and Adonis (53) j a liege, and yet through love a coin- rade j in years a boy, cherished as a son might be ; in wi " a man, wilh all the power which rank and beauty givt Love, aching wilh ils own monotony, invites imagtnation t invesl it in changeful forms. Besides, tbe varying feelingsA of at least ihtee years (104) — three years of loss and gaifljW of love, wrong, wrath, sorrow, repentance, forgiveness, per^ fected Union — are ullered in (he Sonneis, When Shaksperfl began to wiite, his friend had ihe untried innocence of boyJ hpod and an unspolled fame; afcerwards came the offene« • The ijuarlo of :6ci9, though ngl carekssly priiited, is Ur lea acciM 20 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. and the dishonour. And the loving heart practised upon it- self the pileous frauds of wounded affection : now it can credit no evil of the beloved, now it must believe the worst. While the world knows nothing but praise for one so dear, a private injiiry goes deep inlo the soul ; when the world as- sails his reputation,straightway loyalty revives, and even puts a strain upon itself to hide each imperfection from view. A ^ainstaking Student of the Sonnets, Henry Brown, was of opinion that Shakspere intended in these poems tosatirize the sonnet-writers of his time, and in particular his contem- poraries, Drayton and John Davies of Hereford. Professor Minto, while accepting the series (1-126) as of seriousimport^ regards the sonnets addressed to a woman (127-152) as " exercises of skill undertaken in a spirit of wanton defiance and derision of commonplace." Certainly, if Shakspere is a satirist in i to 126, his irony is deep ; the malicious smile was not noticed during two centuries and a half. The poems are in the taste of the time; less extravagant and less füll of conceits than many other Elizabethan collections, more distinguished by exquisite imagination, and all tha^ betokens genuine feeling; they are, as far as manner goes, such son- nets as Daniel might have chosen to write if he had had the imagination and the heart of Shakspere. All that is quaint or contorted or " conceited " in them can be paralleled from passages of early plays of Shakspere, such as Romeo and yuliet, and The 7 wo Gentlemcn of Verona, where assuredly no satirical intention is discoverable. In the sonnets 127 to 154 Shakspere addresses a woman to whom it is impossible to pay the conventional homage of sonneteers ; he cannot teil her that her cheeks are lilies and roses, her breast is of snow, her heart is chaste and cold as ice. Yet he loves her, and will give her tribute of verse. He praises her precisely as a woman who, without beauty, is clever and charming, and a coquette, would choose to be praised. True, she owns no commonplace attractions ; she is no pink and white goddess ; INTRODUCTlON. iill her im[)erfeclions he sees ; yet she can fnsciiiale by some^ naineless spell; she can turn the heart hotorcold; if she '\3a not beautiful, it is because something more rare and finel takes the place of beauty, She angers her lover; he d&i« clares to her face that she is odtous, and at the same ma^ nient he is at her feei. A writer whose distiiiciion it is to have produced the| largest book upon ihe Sonnet«, Mr. Gerald Massey, holdj that he has rescued Shakspere's memory from shame by tl discovery of a secret history, legible in these poenis lo nghlly* illuminated eyes." In 1592, according to ihis theory, Shak-^ spere began lo address pieces in sonnet-form lo his patron Soutbampton. Presenlly ihe earj engaged Ihe poet to write love sonnets on his behalf to Elizabeth Vernon ; assuming also the feelings of Elizabeth Vernon, Shakspere wrote dra- malic sonnets, as if in her person, lo the earl. The table- book containing Sliiikspere's aulograph sonnets was given Iby Southainptoii to Pctnbroke, and at Pembioke's request was writien the dark-woraan series ; for Penibroke, although aulhcntic history kiiows nolhing of Ihe facts, was enamoured of Sidney's Stella, now well advanced in years,'the unhappy Lady Rieh. Afew oflhe sonnets which pass for Shakspere's are really by Herbert, and he, the " Mr. W. H." of Thorpe's dedicatioti, is the "only begetter," that is, procurer of these pieces for the publisher. The Sonnets require re-arrange- ■ meiit, and are grouped in an order of his own by Mr. Massey.l Mr. Massey wriles with zeal ; with a faith in his om opinions which finds sceplicism hard to explain except c 8ome theory of inlelleclual or moral obliquity; and he ex-J faibtts a Wide, miscellaneous reading. The oiie thing Mr.] Massey's elaborate theory seems to ine to lack is some evi-^ dence in its support. His argiimenls may well rema answered. One hardly knows how to tug at the olher en4; of a rope of sand. " The fiisl hinl of ihis iheory was given by Mis. Jamcson. — 3 2 SHAKESPEARES SONNETS. Willi Wordsworlli, Sir Henry Taylor, and Mr. Swinbuine, with Fran^oi.s-Victor Hugo, wJth Kreyssig, Ulrici, Gerviniis.,'ij and Herniant) Isaac,* willi Boaden, Armitage Brown, and Hallam, wilh Furnivalj, Spal ding, Rossetti, and Palgrave, f. believe that Shakspere's Sonneis express his own feelin' his own person. To wlionn ihey were addressed is unknown.. We shall never discover the name of thaC woman who for a season could sound, as no one eise, the instriiment in Siiale spere's heart from the lowest note lo the top of ihe coiiipass..' 'I'o tlie eyes of no diver among the wrecks of lime will llialj curious talisman gleam. Already, when Thorpe dedicai these poems to iheir "only begeller," she perhaps was I in the qiiick-moving üfe of London, to all bot a few, in whi memory were stirred, as by a forlorn, small wind, the greyj ashes of a fire gone oiil, As lo Ihe name of Shakspei yoQlhful friend and pAiron, we conjectiire on slender i dence at the best. Selting claimants aside on whose behalf' llie evideiice is absolutely none, except Ibat ibeir Christian name and surname begiii wilh a W and an H, two remain whose preiensions have been supported by accomplished advocales. Drake (1817), a tearned and refined writer, was the first to suggest that the friend addressed in Shakspere's Sonnets was Henry Wriolhesley, Earl of Southampion, 10 whoni Venus and Adonis was dedicated in 1593, and in the following year Lucrece, in words of streng devotion resem- bling ihose of the twenty-sixih sonnet. t B. Heywood Bright (1819), and James Boaden (1832), independently arrived at Ihe conclusion that the Mr. W. H. of tlie dedicalion, the " begetter '' or inspirer of ihe Sonnets, was William Herben, * A leamcd and llioughlfu! sludenl of llie Sonncls. See hia arllcles m Archiv für das Stitdiiim der Nnitrtii Sfrathen und LiUraluren, 1878-,, L 1 Umke (lid not. i unharaploLi. Hc look "begene: uiiiileiHified. Olhers hold llisl iJ nsmes leverscd, as a Wiiid Ic slaled, suppose Ihal Mr. W. II. " td mean oHamer ; and Icft Mr. ' W. H." ate the Initials otSuuihi llic public ] INTRODUCTION. 23 Earl of Pembroke, to whom, with his brother, as two well- known patroiis of the great dramatist, his fellows Heminge and Condell dedicated the First Folio. Wriothesley was born in 1573, nine years after Shakspere; Herbert in 1580. Wriothesley at an early age became the lover of Elizabeth Vernon, needing therefore no entreaties to marry (1-17); he was not beautiful ; he bore no resemblance to his mother (3. 9) ; his life was active, with varying fortunes, to which allusions might be looked for in the Sonnets, such as may be found in the verses of his other poet, Daniel. Further, it appears from the punning sonnets (135 and 143), that the Christian name of Shakspere's friend was the same as his own, Willy but Wriothesley's name was Henry. To Her- bert the punning sonnets and the "Mr. W. H." of the dedi- cation can be made to apply. He was indeed a nobleman in 1609, but a nobleman might be styled Mr.; " Lord Buck- hurst is entered as M. Sackville in England^s Parnassiis^^ (Minto) ; or the Mt\ may have been meant to disguise the truth. Herbert was beautiful ; was like his illustrious mother; was brilliant, accomplished, licentious; "the most universally beloved and esteemed,'* says Clarendon, "of any man of his age." Like Southampton, he was a patron of poets, and he loved the theatre. In 1599 attempts were unsuccessfully made to induce him to become a suitor for the band of the Lord Admiral's daughter. So far the bal- ance leans towards Herbert. But his father lived until 1601 (see 13 and Notes) ; Southampton's father died while his son was a boy; and the date of Herbert's birth (1580), taken in connection with Meres's mention of sonnets, and the "Two loves " of the Passionate Filgrim sonnet (1599), 144, may well cause a doubt. A clue, which promises to lead us to clearness, and then deceives us into deeper twilight, is the characterization {78- 86) of a rival poet who for a time supplanted Shakspere in his patron's regard. This rival, U\e " b^^AÄX 'ai^\\\\.^'' ^\^^ 24 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. was learned (78) ; dedicated a book to. Shakspere's patroii (82); celebrated his beauty and knowledge (82); in "hymns" (85); was remarkable for "die füll proud sail of his great verse " (86, 80) ; was taught " by spirits " to write " above a mortal pitch," was nightly visited by " an affable familiär ghost " who " gulled him with intelligence " (86). Here are allusions and characteristics which ought to lead to identification. Yet in the end we are forced to confess that the poet remains as dim a figure as the patron. Is it Spenser ? He was learned, but what ghost was that which gulled him? Is it Marlowe ? His verse was proud and füll, and the creator of Faustus may well have had deal- ings with hisown Mephistophelis, but Marlowe died in May, 1593, the year of Venus and Adonis. Is it Drayton, or Nash, or John Davies of Hereford? Persons in search of an in- geniously improbable opinion may choose any one of these. Is it Daniel? Daniel's reputation stood high; he was re- garded as a master by Shakspere in his early poems; he was brought up at Wilton, the seat of the Pembrokes, and in 1601 he inscribed his Defence of Ryme to William Herbert; the Pembroke family favoured astrologers, and the ghost that gulled Daniel may have been the same that gulled Allen, .Sandford, and De* Dee, and through them gulled Herbert. Here is at least a clever guess, and Boaden is again the guesser. But Professor Minto makes a guess even more fortunate. No Elizabethan poet wrote ampler verse, none scorned " ignorance " more, or more haughtily asserted his learning than Chapman. In The Tears of Peace (1609), Homer as a spirit visits and inspires him ; the claim to such inspiration may have been often made by the translator of Homer in earlier years. Chapman was pre-eminently the poet of Night. The Shadoiv of Night, with the motto " Ver- sus mei habebunt aliquantum Noctis," appeared in 1594 ; the titlepage describes it as containing "two poeiicalJ Hymnesy In the dedication Chapman assails unlearned ■n," "hide-bound with affeciio "pnssioii-clriven men," "hide-bound with arteciion to g raeii's faiicies," and rldicales the alleged eternily of 1 "idolatrous platts for riches." "Now what a supereroga- lion in wit tbis is, lo think Skill so mightily pierced with iheir loves, that she should prostiiutely show ihetti her secrets, when she will scarcety be looked upon by others, but with invocation, fastiiig, waicbiiig; yea, not without hav- ing drops of their souls Hke a hmvmly familiär." Of Chap- man's Homer a part appeared in 1596; dedicatory sonnets in a later edition are addressed to bolh Soutliampton and Pembroke. Mr. W, H., Ihe only begetter of the Sonneis, remains un- known. Even the meaniiig of Ihe word "begetter" is in dispute. "I have some cousiii-germans at court," wriles Decker in Satiramastix, "shall Ayc/you ihe reversion of Ihe master of the king's revels," where beget evidenlly means prociire. Was the " begetter " of Ihe Sonneis, ihen, the per- son who procured theni for 'l'horpe? I cannol ihiiik so; there is special point in ibe choice of the word "begetler,'' if Ihe dedicalion be addressed 10 Ihe person wlio iiispired the poems and for whoin lliey were wrltteii. Elerniiy ihrough offspring is what Shakspere raosi desires for his friend ; if he will not beget a child, then he is promised eteruity in Verse by his poet — in verse "whose influeiice is thine, and bom vf thie" (78). Thiis was Mr. W. H. ihe begetter of these poems, and from the point of view of a complimentary ded- icalion he might well be lenned ihe only begetter. i have no space to consider suggesiions which seem to me of Utile weighE—that W. H. ia a misprint for W. S., meaning William Shakspere; ibat "W. H. all" should be read "W. Hall;" ihat a fidl slop should be placed afler "wishelh," making Mr. W. H., perhaps William Herbert ot William Halhaway, the wisher of happiness to Soiithamp- lon, Ihe only begeiier {Ph, Cbasles and Bolton Corney); nor du 1 ihink we need aigiic for or against the suppositioo ] 26 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. of a painful German commentator (Barnstorff ), that Mr. W. H. is none other than Mr. William Himself. When Thorpe uses the words "the adventurer in setting forlh," perhaps he meant to compare himself to one of the young volun- teers in the days of Elizabeth and James, who embarked on naval enterprises, hoping to make their fortunes by discov- ery or conquest ; so he with good wishes took his risk on the sea of public favour in this llght venture of the Son- nets.* The date at which the Sonnets were written, like their ori- gin, is uncertain. In Willobie^s Avisa, 1594, in commen- datory verse prefixed to which occurs the earliest printed mention of Shakspere by name, H. W. (Henry Willobie), pin- ing with love for Avisa, bewrays his disease to his familiär friend W. S., " who not long before had tried the curtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered of the like infection." W. S. encourages his friend in a passion which he knows must be hopeless, intending to view ihis '* loving Comedy " from far off, in order to learn " whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor than it did for the old player." From Canto 44 to 48 o^ Avisa^V^. S. addresses H. W. on his love-afTair, and H. W. replies. It is remarka- ble that Canto 47 in form and substance bears resemblance to the stanzas in The Passionate Pilgrim beginning "Whenas thine eye hath chose the dame." Assuming that W. S. is William Shakespeare, we learn that he had loved unwisely, been laughed at, and recovered from the infection of his passion before the end of 1594. It seemed impossible to pass by a poem which has been described as " the one con- temporary book which has ever been supposed to throw any direct or indirect light on the mystic matter " of the Son- nets. But although the reference to W. S., his passion for Avisa fair and chaste, and his recovery, be matter of interest to inquirers after Shakspere's life, Willobie^ s Ainsa seems to • * See Dr. Grosart's Donne^ vol. ii. pp. 45, 46. INTROD UCnON. me to have iio point of conneclioii wiih the Sonneis of ShaW Varioua atlempts have been made by English, Frend and German students to place the Sonnets in a new anti belier order, of which attempts iio two agree between ihem- selves. Thal the Sonnets are not printed in the quarlo, i6og, at haphazard, is evident from ihe fact that the Envoy, 126, is rightly placed ; that poems addressed to a mistress foUow those addressed to a friend ; and tliat the two Cupid and Dian sonnets stand together at the dose. A nearer view makes it apparent that in ihe first series (i-ia6) a con- tinuoiis Story is conducted through varioiis stages lo it; minaiion ; a more niinute inspeciion ciiscovers points ofi ] conlact or connection between sonnet and sonnet, '; natural sequence of" ihought, passton, and imagery, Tl in the end convinced l!iat no arrangement which has been proposed is as good ns that of ihe quarto. But the force of ihis remark seems to me (o apply with certainty only to Sonnets i-ij6. The second series (127-154), allhough somei of its pieces are evitlently connected witli ihose which standt'l near them, does not exhibit a like inlelligible sequence j a' belter arrangement may, perhaps, be found; or, it may be, no possible arrangement can educe order out of ihe strug- gles between will and judgmenl, between blood and reason ; lumult and chaos are, perhaps, a poriion of their life and bei 11g. A piece of evidence confirniing the opinion here advanced will be found in ihe use of Ihou and yuu by Shakspere as a mode of address to his friend. Why thou or you is chosen, is not always explicable ; sometimes the choice seems to be iletermiiied by consideratioiis ofeuphony; somelimes of • The force of the allusion 10 Iragedy and comedy \% weakened by llic äcl ihu we tiiid in AUitia (lS9S) tlie course oTlovciiiuken ufag a iragi- romcdy, wticrc iiü rcrercnce lu a tcal aclur uu ihc lAVi/t 11 iDleiiücd; 28 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, rhyme ; sometimes intimate affection seems to indicate the use oi you, and respectful homage that of thou; but this is by no means invariable. What I vvould call attention to, however, as exhibiting something like order and progress in the arrangement of 1609, is this: that in the first fifty son- nets, you is of extremely rare occurrence, in the second fifty you and thou alteinate in little groups of sonnets, thou hav- ing still a preponderance, but now only a slight preponder- ance ; in the remaining twenty-six, j'^?^/ becomes the ordinary mode of address, and thou the exception. In the sonnets to a mistress, thou is invariably employed. A few sonnets of the first series, as 63-68, have " my love," and the third person throughout.* Whether idealizing reality or wholly fanciful, an Eliza- bethan book of sonnets was — not always, but in many in- stances — made up of a chain or series of poems, in a de- signed or natural sequence, viewing in various aspects a Single theme, or carrying on a love-story to its issue, pros- perous or the reverse. Sometimes advance is niade through the need of discovering new points of view, and the move- ment, always delayed, is rather in a circuit than straight for- ward. In Spenser's Amoretti we read the progress of love from humility through hope to conquest. In Astrophel and ♦ I cannot here present detailed statistics. » Thou and you are to be considered only when addressing friend or lover, not Time, the Muse, etc. Five sets of sonnets may then be distinguished : i. Using ihotu 2. Using j'<7«. 3. Using neither, but belonging to a thou group. 4. Using ncither, but belonging \.Q?iyou group. 5. Using both (24). I had hoped that this investigation was left to form one of my gleanings. But Pro- fessor Goedeke, in the Deutsche Rundschau^ March, 1877, looked into the matter ; his results seem to me vitiated by an arbitrary division of the sonnets using neither thou wox you into groups of eleven and twelve, and by a fantastic theory that Shakspere wrote his sonnets in books or groups of fourteen each. 1 In his larger ed., published later, Dowden adds a tabular Classification of the Son* nets under the five heads mentioned — Ed. JNTRODÜCTIOm 5tlella, we read ihe story of passion struggüng wilh unloward fate, yet at Ust mastered by ihe resoive lo do high deeds: " Sweet ! for a wliile give respitc to my heart Whieh panis as ihaugh ii silll woiild leap to ilie« ; And Oll my thaughia give Ihy I.ieulenniicy To tbis great Cause." In Farthenopitil atil Piirlhenop/ie \he Hojy is of a new I supplaiiting an old, of bot and cold fevers, of despair, t as last effort of the desperate lover, of an imagined allempt to subdue the affeclions of his cruel lady by magic art, But in reading Sidney, Spenser, Barnes, and still more, Watson, Constable, Drayton, and olhers, allbough a large elemenl of the art-poetry of [lie Renascence is common to ihem and Shakspere, Ihe Student of Shakspere's Soniiels does not feel at home. It is when we open Daniel's Pelia that we recog- nizc close kinsliip. The manner is the sanie, though the master proves himself of tardier imaginaiion and less ardent temper. Diciion, imagery, rhymes, and, in sonnets of like . form, versification, distinclly resemble those of Shakspere. J Malone was surely right when he recognized in Daniel the J master of Shakspere asawriter of sonnets— a master quickly | excelled by his pupil. And it is in Daniel that we find son- net starting from sonnet almost in Shakspere's manncr, only thal Daniel offen links poem with poem in more formal wise, the last or the penultimate line of one poem supplying the first line ofthat which immediately follows. Let US attempt lo irace briefly the sequetice of incidents and feelings in the Sonnets i-iz6. A young man, beautiful, brilliant, and accomplished, is the hetr of a great bou^e ; he ig exposed lo temptations of youth, and weaiih, and rank. Possibly his moiher desires to see iiim marricd ; cerlainly it is ihe desire of bis friend. "I should be glad if you were caught," writes Languet lo Philip Sidney, " that so you migliC give to your counlry sons like yourself." " If you marry a wife, and if you beget chüdren like yourself, you will be do 30 SHAKESPEARKS SONNETS. ing better service to your country than if you were to cut the throats of a thousand Spaniards and Frenchmen." " * Sir,' Said Croesus to Cambyses," Languet writes to Sidney, now aged twenty-four, " ' I consider your father must be held your better, because he was the father of an admirable prince, whereas you have as yet no son like yourself.' " It is in the manner of Sidney's own Cecropia that Shakspere urges marriage upon his friend.* " Nalure when you were first born, vowed you a woman, and as she made you child of a mother, so to do your best to be mother of a child " (Sonnet 13. 14); "she gave you beauty lo move love; she gave you wit to know love ; she gave you an excellent body to reward love ; which kind of liberal rewarding is crowned vvith an unspeakable felicity. For this as it bindeth the receiver, so it makes happy the bestower ; this doth not impoverish, but enrich the giver (6. 6). O the comfort of comforts, to see your children grow up, in whom you are as it were eter- nized ! . . . Have you seen a pure Rose-water kept in a crys- tal glass, how fine it looks, how sweet it smells, while that beautiful glass imprisons it! Break the prison and let the water take his own course, doth it not embrace the dust, and lose all his former sweetness and fairness ; truly so are we, if we have not the stay, rather than the restraint of Crystal- line marriage (5) ; . . . And is a solitary life as good as this? then can one string make as good music as a consort (8)." In like manner Shakspere urges the youth to perpetuate his beauty in offspring (i-i7).t But if Will refuses, then his poet will make war against Time and Decay, and confer immortality upon his beloved one by Verse (15-19). Will is the pattern and exemplar of human beauty (19), so unit- ing in himself the perfections of man and woman (20); this ♦ Arcadiay IIb. iii. Noticed by Mr. Massey in his Shakespeares Son- iiets and his Private Friends, pp. 36, 37. t In what follows, to avoid the confusion of /le and hini^ we call Shak- spere's friend, as he is called in 135, Will, INTRODUCTION. 3t rs no exlravagant praise, but simple truth (21), And such a being lias exchanged love with Shakspere (22), wiio must needs be siletit witli escess of passion (23), clierishing in bis heart Ibe iiiiage of bis frieiid's beauty (24), but bolding still more dear the love from which 110 unkind fortune caii ever separate hiin (25). Here affairs of his owii compel Sliakspere to a journey whicb removes him from Will (26, 27). Sleepless al night, and toiling by day, he thinks of the absent one (27, 28); grieving for bis owti poor esiaie (29), and the deadi of friends, but finding in llie one beloved amends for all (30, 31); and so Sliakspere comraends to bis friend his poor verses as a token of affection which may survive if he himself should die (32). At Ibis point tlie mood changes — in his absence bis friend has been false 10 friendship (33}; now, indeed, Will would let the sunshine of bis favour beam out again, but that will not eure the dis- grace; tears and penitence are filier (34) ; and for sake of such tears XViil shall be forgiven (35), but henceforth their lives must run apart (36) ; Shakspere, separated from Will, can look on and rejoice in bis friend"s happiness and honour {37), singing bis praise in verse (38), which he could not do if [hey were so united that to praise his friend were self- praise (39) ; separated they musl be, and even their loves be no longer one ; Shakspere can now give his love, even her he loved, to ihe gentle tbief ; wronged ihough he is, ht will still bold iVill dear (40) ; what is he but a boy whom ^ woman has beguüed (41) ? and for boih, für friend and n U'ess, in the midst of his pain, he will try to feign cKcuses (42). Here Ihere seems to be a gap of tirae, The Sonneis begin again iit absence, and some sludents bave called this, perhaps rightly, the Second Absence (43 fol.)- His friend conlinues as dear as ever, but contidence is shaken, and a deep dislrust begins to grow {48), What right indeed has a poor player to claim conslancy and love (49)? He is on a journey which removes him from Will 150, 51). Hi» J 32 SHAKESPEARE'S SO NNR TS, friend perhaps professes unshaken loyal ty, for Shakspere now takes heart, and praises WilVs truth (53, 54) — takes heart, and believes that his own verse will forever keep ihat truth in mind. He will endure the pain of absence, and have no jealous thoughts {57, 58) ; striving to honour his friend in song better than ever man was honoured be- fore (59) ; in song which shall outlast the revolutions of time {60). Still he cannot quite get rid of jealous fears (61) ; and yet, what right has one so worn by years and care to claim all a young man's love {62) ? Will^ too, in his turn must fade, but his beauty will survive in verse (f>z)» Alas! to think that death will take away the beloved one (64) ; nothing but verse can defeat time and decay (65). For his own part Shakspere would willingly die, were it not that, dying, he would leave his friend alone in an evil world (66). Why should one so beautiful live to grace this ill World (67) except as a survival of the genuine beauty of the -gpod old tinies (68) ; yet beautiful as he is, he is blamed for careless living {69), but surely this must be slander (70). Shakspere here returns to the thought of his own death : when I leave this vile world, he says, let me be forgotten (71, 72) ; and my death is not very far off (73) ; but when I die my spirit still lives in my verse {74). A new group seems to begin with 75. Shakspere loves his friend as ä miser loves his gold, fearing it may be stolen (fearing a rival poet?). His verse is monotonous and old-fashioned (not like the rival's verse ?) (76) ; so he sends Will his manu- script book unfilled, which Will may fill, if he please, with verse of his own ; Shakspere chooses to sing no more of Beauty and of Time \ Wilfs glass and dial may inform him henceforth on these topics (77). The rival poet has now won the first place in WilPs esteem (78-86). Shakspere must bid his friend farewell (87). If Will should scorn him, Shakspere will side against himself (88, 89). But if his friend is ever to hate him, let it be at once, that the bitter- INTRODUCTION. ZZ ness of death may soon be past (90). He has dared to say farewell, yet his friend's love is all the world to Shakspere, and the fear of losing him is misery (91); but he cannot really lose his friend, for death would come quickly to save him from such grief ; and yet Will may be false and Shak- spere never know it {92) \ so his friend, fair in seeming, false within, would be like Eve's apple (93) ; it is to such self-contained, passionless persons that nature intrusts her rarest gifts of grace and beauty ; yet vicious self-indulgence will spoil the fairest human soul (94). So let Will beware of his youthful vices, already whispered by the lips of men (95) j true, he makes graces out of faults, yet this should be kept within bounds (96). Here again, perhaps, is a gap of time.* Sonnets 97-99 are written in absence, which some students, perhaps rightly, call Third Absence. These three sonnets are füll of tender affection, but at the close of 99 allusion is made to WilFs vices, the canker in the rose. After this foUowed a period of silence. In 100 love begins to re- new itself, and song awakes. Shakspere excuses his silence (loi) j his love has grown while he was silent (102); his friend's loveüness is better than all song (103) ; three years have passed since first acquaintance ; Will looks as young as ever, yet time must insensibly be altering his beauty (104). Shakspere sings with a monotony of love (105). All former Singers praising knights and ladies only prophesied concern- ing Will {106) ; grief and fear are past ; ihe two friends are reconciled again ; and both live forever united in Shak- spere's verse {107). Love has conquered time and age, which destroy mere beauty of face {108). Shakspere con- fesses his errors, but now he has returned to his home of ♦ The last two lines of 96^1101 very appropriate, I think, in that sonnet — are identical with the last two lines of 36. It occiirs to nie as a possi- bility that the MS. in Thorpe's hands may here have been iaiperfect, and that he fiiled it up so far as to complctc 96 with a coin^le.<.C\.<^KSN.'ajx'^-asSx^2«. sonnet. e 34 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, love (109), he will never wander again (no); and his past faults were partly caused by his temptations as a player (i 1 1) ; he cares for no blame and no praise now except those of his friend (112). Once more he is absent from his friend (Foiirth Absence ?), but füll of loving thought of him (i 13, 1 14). Love has grown and will grow yet more (115). Love is uncon- querable by Time {it6). Shakspere confesses again his Wanderings from his friend ; ihey were tests of WilVs con- stancy (117); and they quickened his own appetite for gen- uine love (118). Ruined love rebuilt is stronger than at first {119); there were wrongs on both sides and must now be mut- ual forgiveness {120). Shakspere is not to be judged by the report of malicious censors (121); he has given away his friend's present of a table-book, because he needed no re- membrancer (122) \ records and registers of time are false ; only a lover's memory is to be wholly trusted, recognizing old things in what seem new {123) ; Shakspere's love is not based on self-interest, and therefore is uninfluenced by fort- une (124) ; nor is it founded on external beauty of form or face, but is simple love for love's sake (125). Will is still young and fair, yet he should remember that the end must come at last (126). Thus the series of poems addressed to his friend closes gravely with thoughts of love and death. The Sonnets may be divided at pleasure into many smaller groups, but I find it possible to go on wilhout Interruption from i to 32; from 33 to 42 ; from 43 to 74; from 75 to 96; from 97 to 99; from 100 to 126.* I do not here attempt to trace a continuous sequence in the sonnets addressed to the dark-haired woman, 127-154; I doubt whelher such continuous sequence is to be found in ♦ Perhaps there is a break at 58. The most careful studies of the se- quence of the Sonnets are Mr. FurnivaU's, in his preface to the Liopold Shakspere^ and Mr. Spaiding's, in The GentlcmaiCs Magazine ^ March, 1878. INTRODUCTION. 35 them; but in the Notes some points of connecdon between sonnet and sonnet are pointed out. If Shakspere " unlocked his heart " in these Sonnets, whatj do we learn from them ofthat great heart ? I cannot answer; otherwise than in words of niy own formeily written. " In the Sonnets we recognize three things: that Shakspere was capable of measureless personal devotion; that he was ten- derly sensitive, sensitive above all to every diminution or alteration of that love his heart so eagerly craved j and that, when wronged, although he suffered anguish, he transcended his private injury, and learned to forgive. . . . The errors of his heart originated in his sensitiveness, in his imagination (not at first inured to the hardness of fidelity to the fact), in his quick consciousness of existence, and irrihe self-abandon- ing devotion of his heart. There are some noble lines by Chapman, in which he pictures to himself the life of great energy, enthusiasms, and passions, which forever Stands upon the edge of utmost danger, and yet forever remains in abso- lute security : *Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves to have his sails fiH'd with a lusty wind Even tili his sail-yards tremble, his masts crnck, And his rapt ship runs on her side so low That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air ; There is no danger to a man that knows What life and death is, — there*s not any law Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law.' " Such a master-spirit, pressing forward under strained can- vas, was Shakspere. If the ship dipped and drank water, she rose again ; and at length we behold her within view of her haven, sailing under a large, calm wind, not without to- kens of stress of weather, but if battered, yet unbroken by the waves." The last plays of Shakspere, llie Tempest^ Cym- Mine, Winter's Taie^ Henry VIII. ^ illuminate the Sonnets and justify the moral genius of their writer. 36 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. \From Mr. F. y. FurnivaWs Comvients on the Sonnets.*'\ The great question is, do Shakspere's Sonnets speak his own heart and thoughts or not? And were it not for the fact that many critics really deserving the name of Shak- spere students, and not Shakspere fools, have held the Son- nets to be merely dramatic, I could not have conceived that poems so intensely and evidently autobiographic and self- revealing, poems so one with the spirit and inner meaning of Shakspere's growth and life, could ever have been con- ceived to be other than what they are, the records of his own loves and fears. And I believe that if the acceptance of them as such had not involved the consequence of Shak- spere*s intrigue with a niarried woman, all readers would have taken the Sonnets as speaking of Shakspere's own life. But his admirers are so anxious to remove every stain from him that they contend for a non-natural interpretation of his poems. . . . They forget Shakspere^s impulsive nature, and his long absence from his home. They will not face the probabililies of the case, or recollect that David was still God's friend though Bathsheba lived. The Sonnets are, in oAe sense, Shakspere's Psalms. Spiritual struggles underlie both poets' work. For myself, I 'd accept any number of "slips in sensual mire " on Shakspere's part, to have the " bursts of (loving) heart " given us in the Sonnets. The true motto for the fiist group of Shakspere's Sonnets is to be Seen in David's words, " 1 am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan ; very pleasant hast thou been unto me. 'J'hy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman." We have had them reproduced for us Victorians, without their stain of sin and shame, in Mr. Tennyson's In Memo- riam. We have had them again to some extent in Mrs. Browning's glorious Sonnets to her husband, with their iter- ance, " Say over again, and yet once over again, that thou * The Leopold Shakspere (London, 1877), p. Ixiii. fol. INTRODUCTION, 37 dost love me." We may look upon the Sonnets as a piece of music, or as Shakspere's pathetic Sonata, each melody in- troduced, dropped again, brought in again with variations, but one füll strain of undying love and friendship through the whole. Why could Shakspere say so beautifully for Antonio of The Merchant, " All debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but see you at my death: notwithstanding, use your pleasure " ? Why did he niake Antonio of Twelflh- Night say, "A witchcraft drew me hither"? Why did he make Viola declare — ** And I most jocund, apt, and willingly, To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die " ? Why did he paint Helena alone ; saying — ** 'T was pretty though a plague To see him every hour ; to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eyes, his curls, In our heart's table, — heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour ! But now he*s gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics"? Because he himself was Helena, Antonio. A witchcraft drew him to a " boy," a youth to whom he gave his " Love without pretension or restraint, All his in dedication." Shakspere towards him was as Viola towards the Duke. He went ** After him I love more than I love these eyes, More than my life." In the Sonnets we have the gentle Will, the melancholy mild- eyed man, of the Droeshout portrait. Shakspere's tender, sensitive, refined nature is seen clearly here, but through a glass darkly in the plays. I have no space to dwell on the sections into which I separate the Sonnets, and which follow in the table below. I will only call special attention to sections 9 and ii/3 (Nos. 17 38 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 71-74, 87-93), ^" which Shakspere's love to his friend is so beautifully set forth, and to section 13 (Nos. 97-99), in which WiH's flower-like beauty is dwelt on, as Shakspere's love for him in absence recalled it. Let those who want to realize the difference between one kind of friendship and another, contrast these Sonnets of Shakspere's with Bacon's celebrat- ed Essay on Friendship. On this point I quote the first page of a paper sent in to me at my Bedford Lectures : " There are some men who love for the sake of what love yields, and of these was Lord Bacon \ and there are some who love for * love's sake,' and loving once, love always ; and of these was Shakspere. These do not lightly give their love, but once given, their faith is incorporate with their be- ing; and having become part of theniselves, to part with that part would be to be dismembered. Therefore if change or sin corrupt the engrafted limb, the only effect is that the whole body is shaken with anguish, * And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief To bear love's wrongs, than hate's known injury.' — Sonn. 40. The offending member may be nursed into health, or loved into life again ; but — forsaken ! — never ! * Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.' — Sonn, 116. These are not the men who reap outer advantage from their friendship; they generally give rather than take; they are often the victims of circumstance, and the scapegoats for their friends' offences; still, they reap the benefit which in- ward growth produces ; the glorious leaven of self-abnegat- ing love within them impregnates their whole being; they move simply and naturally among us, but we feel that they stand on a higher level than we— -that they see with * larger, other eyes than ours,' and we yield them homage, and feel better for having known them." — M. J. INTRODUCTION. 39 The thoughtless objection that many Sonnets in ihis group confuse the sex of the person they Ve addressed to, is so plain- ly answered by Shakspere himself in Sonnet 20, on the master- raistress of his passion, that one can only wonder — although a Shakspere Student is bound to wonder at nothing in his commentators — that the objection was ever taken. SONNETS. Analysis of Group i. Sonnets 1-126. Section i. Sonnets 1-26. a. 1-17. Will's beauty, and his duty to marry and beget a son. ß, 18-25. Will's beauty, and Shakspere's love for him. 2. *• 26-32. First Absence. Shakspere travelling, and away frora Will. 3. '* 33~35' Will's sensual fault blamed, repented, and for- given. 36-39. Shakspere has committed a fault that will sep- arate him from Will. ( ? 2d absence in 39.) 40-42. Will has taken away Shakspere's mistress. (See Group 2, § 6, Sonnets 133-136.) 6. " 43-61. a. 43-55. Second Absence. Will absent. Shak- spere has a Portrait of him. ß. 56-58. The sovereign : slave watching : so made by God. 7. 59-60. Will's beauty. ^. 61. Waking and watching. Shakspere has rivals, " 7. " 62-65. Shakspere füll ofself-love,conqueredby Time, which will conquer Will too : yet Shakspere will secure him eternity. " 8. ** 66-70. Shakspere (like Hamlet) tired of the world : but not only on public grounds. Will has mixed with bad Company; but Shakspere is sure he is pure, and excuses him. '* 9. " 71-74« Shakspere on his own death, and his entire love for his friend. (Comparc the death-thoughts in Hamlet and Measure for Measure,*) * I do not think that "The coward conqucst of a wrctch's knife," 74. II, alludes to an attempt to stab Shakspere. I believe it is the "con- füunding agc's cruel knife " of 63. 10. (( (t 40 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. Secrion lo. Sonnets 75-77. Shakspere*s love, and always writing on one theme, his Will ; with the present of a table-book, dial, and pocket looking-glass combined in one. " II. " 7S-93. a. 78-86. Shakspereon his rivalsinWiirslove. (G. Chapman, the rival poet.*) ß. 87-93. Shakspere's farewell to Will : most beautiful in the self-forgetfulness of Shakspere's love. ** 12. " 94-96. Will vicioiis ; yet Shakspere loves him. " 13. " 97-99« Third Absence. WiU's flower-like beauty, and Shakspere's love for him ; followed by faults on both sides, and a Separation,! ended by Will's desire, 120. 11. ♦ " The proud füll sail of his great verse " (86. i) probably alludes to the swelling hexameters of Chapman's englishing of Homer. " His spirit, by spirits taught to write," may well refcr to Chapman's claim that Homer's spirit inspired him, a claim made, no doubt, in words, before its appearance in print in his Tears of Peace^ 1609, Inductio, p. 112, col. i., Chatto and Windus ed. — "I am, Said he [Homer], that spirit Elysian^ That did tky bosom fiU With such a flood of soul, that thou wert fain, With exclaniations of her rapture then^ To vent it to the echoes of the vale . . . and thou didst inherit My true sensct for the time then, in nty spirit; And I invisibly went ^ontpting thee.** . . . See, too, on Shakspere's sneer at his rival's " affable familiär ghost, which nightly gulls him with intelligence," Chapman's Dedication to his Shadaw of Night (1594), p. 3, "not without having drops of their souls like an 2.yt2iktdfamiliar^^'* and in his Tears of Peace^ p. 123, col. 2 : "Still being persuaded by the shameless night, That all my reading, writing, all my pains, Are serious trifles, and the idle veins Of an unthrifty angel that deludes My simpU fancy?^ .... These make a better case for Chapman being the rival than has been made for any one eise. (Mr. Harold Littledale gave me some of these references.) t Happily not ending like that of Sir Leoline and Lord Roland de Vaux, in Coleridge. INTRODUCTION, 41 Section 14. Sonnets 100-121. «. 100-112. Renewing of love, three years after the first Sonnets (104). Shakspere's love stronger now in its summer thanit was in its spring, 102. 5 ; 119. 10- 12 * Note the "hell oftime" (i20.6)thatWiirsunkindness has made Shakspere pass.t ß. 113-114. Fourth Absence. Shakspere sees Will in all nature. 7. 115-121. Shaksperedescribeshislovefor Will, and justifies himself. ** 15. " 122-126. Shakspere excuses himself for givingaway Will's present of some tables, again de- scribes his love for Will, and wams Will that he too must grow old. AVith regard to the Second Group of Sonnets, we must al- ways keep Shakspere's own words in No. 121 before us : •' No, T am that I am ; } and they that level At my abuses, reckon up their own : I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel ; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown ; Unless this general evil they maintain, — All men are bad, and in their badness reign." Still I think it is piain that Shakspere had become involved in an intrigue with a married woman, who threw him over for his friend Will. She was dark, had beautiful eyes, and was a fine musician, but false. The most repulsive of the Son- nets is no doubt No. 129. But that and the others plainly show that Shakspere knew that his love was his sin (142), ♦ The doctrine here that "ruin'd love, when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first" was also put into Tennyson's Priucess in its " Bless- ings on the falling-out, that all the more endears ;" but was rightly taken out again. t " And to be wroth with one we love, Doth work like madness in the brain." — Coleridge, X Compare lago's ** I am not what I am," in Othello^ i. i, and Parolles's **Simply the thing I am shall make me live," in All 'j Well^ iv. 3. 42 SHAKESPEARE'S SO.VNETS. and that in bis supposed heaven he found hell.* Adultery in those days was no new thing, was trea^d with an indiffer- ence that we wonder at now. What was new, is that which Shakspere shows us, his deep repentance for the sin com- mitted. Sad as it may be to us to be forced to conclude that shame has to be cast on the noble name we reverence, yet let us remember that it is but for a temporary stain on his career, and that through the knowledge of the human heart he g^ined by his own trials we get the intensest and most valuable records of his genius. It is only those who have been through the mill themselves, that know how hard God*s stones and the devil's grind. The Second Group of Sonnets, 127-154, 1 divide into — 127. On his mistress*s dark complexion, brows, and cyes. (Cf. Berowne on his dark Rosaline, in Lot'e's Latours Lost,) 1 28. On her, his music, playing music (the virginals). 129. On her, after enjoying her. He laments his weakness. 130. On her, a chaffing description of her. (Com- pare Marlowe's I^wto ; Lingna, before 1603, in Dodsley^ ix. 370; and Shirley's Sisters: " Were it not fine," etc.) ** 5. ** 131-132. Though piain to others, his mistress is fairest to Shakspere*s doting heart. But her deeds are black ; and her black eyes pity him. •* 6. •* I33~'36- She has taken his friend Will from him (cf^ 40-42). He asks her to restore his friend (134), or to take him as part of her (and his) Will (135). Ifshe'llbutlovehisname,she'll love him (Shakspere), as his name too is Will (136). ** 7» ** *37""'45' Shakspere knows his mistress is not beautiful, and that she 's false, but he loves her (137). Each lies to and flatters the other (138). Still if she *11 only look kindly on him, it '11 be enough(i39). She must not look too cruel- ly, or he might despair and go mad, and teil • Sonnets 119. 2, 8; 147. i, 14. Section I. Sonnet ti 2. t* (t 3- ** tt A ** INTRODUCTION, 43 the World that ill of her that it would only too soon believe (140). He loves her in spite of bis senses (141). She has broken her bed-vow ; then let her pity him (142). She may catch his friend if she will but give him a smile (143). He has two loves, a fair man, a dark woman who 'd corrupt the man (144, the Key Sottnet). She was going to say she hated him, but, seeing his distress, said, not him (145). Section 8. Sonnet 146. (? Misplaced.) A remonstrance with himself, on spending too much, either on dress or out- ward self-indulgence, and exhorting himself to give it up for inward culture. (The blank for two words in line 2, 1 fill with *' Hemm'd with:" cf. VemtsanäAdoniSt 1022/* Hemm'd with thieves.") He declares his belief in the immortality of the soul in line 14. «* 9. ** 147-148. Shakspere's feverish love drives him mad, his doctor — Reason — ^being set aside (147). Love has obscured his sight (148). ** la " 149-152. He gives himself up wholly to his mistress; loves whom she loves, hates whom she hates ( 149). The worst of her deeds he loves bet- ter than any other's best (150). The more he ought to hate her, the more he loves her. He is content to be her drudge, for he loves her (151). Yet he 's forsworn, for he 's told lies of her goodness, and she has broken her bed-vow; he has broken twenty oaths(i52). *• II. " 153-154. (May be made Group HL, or Division 2 of Group n.). Two sonnets lighter in tone. In both Cupid sleeps, has his brand put out, in (153) a fountain, (154) a well, which the brand turns into medical baths ; Shakspere comes for eure to each, but finds none. He wants his mistress's eyes for that (i 53). Wa- ter cools not love (154). The Sonnets Stretch, I believe, over many years ; the ex- istence of a few, even the first six-and-twenty, in 1598 would saiisfy Mcres's mention. That three years elapsed between the Sonnets 100-112 and certain former Sonnets is clear from 44 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 104. . . . Biit, whatever their date, I vvish to say, wilh all the emphasis I can, that in my belief no one can understand Shakspere who does not hold that his Sonnets are autobi- ographical, and that they explain the depths of the soul of the Shakspere who wrote the plays. I know that Mr. Browning is against this view, and holds that if Shakspere ///>/" unlock his heart m his Sonnets," then "the less Shak- spere he." But rd rather take, on this question, the wit- ness of the greatest poetess of our Victorian, nay, of all time yet, and ask whether she was the less, or the greater and triier, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or poet, because she un- lockt her heart in her Sonnets, or because she " went for- ward and confessed to her critics that her poems had her heart and life in them, they were not empty shells !" " I have done my work, so far, as work, — not as mere band and head work, apart from the personal being, — but as the completest expression of that being 10 which I could at- tain" (preface to ed. of 1844). And this is why she has drawn to hes all noble souls. If any poet has failed in attaining the like result, let him know that it is because he has not used her means. He has kept his readers outside him, and they in return have kept him outside them, not taking him, as they've taken her, into their hearts. It is the heart's voice alone that can stir other hearts. I always ask that the Sonnets should be read between the Second and Third Periods,* for the " hell of time " of which they speak is the best preparation for the temper of that Third Period, and enables us to understand it. The fierce and Stern decree of that Period seems to me to be, " there shall be vengeance, death, for misjudgment, failure in duty, self- indulgence, sin," and the innocent who belong to the guilty shall suffer with them : Portia, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cor- delia, lie beside Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Lear. * For Mr. Furnivairs Classification of Shakespeare's plays and poems, see our ed. of A. Y. L. p. 25. — Ed, SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. TO • THE . ONLIE . BEQETTER • OF. THESE . INSVINQ . SONNETS • Mn W. H. ALL . HAPPINESSE • AND . THAT . ETERNITIE • PROMISED . BY. OVR . EVER-LIVINQ • POET • WISHETH . THE . WELL-WISHINQ • ADVENTVRER • IN • SETTINQ . FORTH . T- T. From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beaiity's rose might nevüi* die, But as the riper should by tiine decease, His tender heir might bear his memory ; But thou, contracied to ihine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy [ight's flame wiib self-subsiatuial fuel, Making a famine whsre abundance lies, Thyself Ihy foe, to thy sweet seif too cruel. Thou, that art now llie world's fresh Ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, mak'st wasie in niggarding. Pily the world, or eise ihis glutton bc, To eat the world's due, by che grave and thce. 48 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. II. When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, (L/ And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, -tr" Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz*d on now, ^ Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held ; Then being ask*d where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty 's use, If thou couldst answer * This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,' Proving his beauty by succession thine ! This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. III. Look in thy glass, and teil the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose unear*d womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry } Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity ? Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime ; So thou through Windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live, remember'd not to be, Die Single, and thine image dies with thee. shakespeare:s sonne ts, 49 IV. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost ihou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy ? Natureis bequest gives nothing but doth lena. And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give ? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a suni of sums, yet canst not live ? For, having traffic with th3'self alone, Thou of thyself thy sweet seif dost deceive. Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave ? Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives th' executor to be. V. Those hours that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel ; For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there; Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where : Then, were not summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's eflfect with beauty were bereft, Nor it nor no reniembrance what it was : But flowers distilPd, though they with winter meet, Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet D 50 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, VI. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd : Make sweet some vial j treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kiird. That use is not forbidden usury Which happies those that pay the willing loan ; That's for thyself to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one ; Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee : Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-wiH'd, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. VII. // e y* / / ^'^ ^ Lo ! m theiDrient when the gracious h'ght Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty ; And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, The eyes, fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract and look another way : So thou, thyself Oll t-going in thy noon, Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 51 VIII. Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly ? Sweets with sweets war notjoy delights in joy. ^^-'^ Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, ^ Or eise receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy ? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds C In singleness the parts that thou shoüldst bean^^^ Mark how one string, sweet husband to ai Strikes each in each by mutual ordering, Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing; Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee : * l'hou Single wilt prove none.' IX. Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye That thou consum'st thyself in Single life ? Ah ! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, The World will wail thee, like a makeless wife ; The World will be thy widow and still weep That thou no form of thee hast left behind, When every private widow well may keep By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind. I^ook, what an unthrift in the world doth spend Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it ; But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, And,kept unus'd, the user so destroys it. No love toward others in that bosooi sits That on himself such murtherous shame commits. 52 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS, i X. For shame ! deny that thou bear'st love to any, Ö— Who for thyself art so unprovident. Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many, But that thou none lov'st is most evident; For thou art so possess'd with murtherous hate ^ That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire, (^ Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate ^- Which to repair should be thy chief desire. ^-* 0, change thy thought, that I may change my mind ! _ Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love ? Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, \ Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove ; Make thee another seif, for love of me, That beauty still may live in thine or thee. I XI. As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest In ohe of thihe, from that which thou departest : And that fresh blöbd which ycmngly thdu bestowest- Thou mafyst call thine when tho" And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence •. Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. Li XIII. O, that you were yourself ! but, love, you are No longer yours than you yourself here live ; Against this Coming end you should prepare. And your sweet semblance to some other give. So should that beauty which you hold in lease Find no determination ; then you were Yourself again after yourself s decease, When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, Which husbandry in honour might uphold Against the stormy gusts of winter^s day And barren rage of death's eternal cold ? O, none but unthrifts ! Dear my love, you know You had a father ; let your son say so. i8 54 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, XIV. Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck ; And yet tnethinks I have astronomy, But not lo teil of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons* quality ; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes teil, Pointing to each bis tbunder, rain, and wind, Or say with princes if it shall go well, By oft predict tbat I in heaven find : But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive. And, constant stars, in them I read sucb art As trutb and beauty shall togetber tbrive, If from tbyself to störe thou wouldst convert ; Or eise of tbee tbis I prognosticate : Tby end is trutb's and beauty's doom and date. XV. Wben I consider every tbing tbat grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, Tbat tbis buge stage presentetb nougbt but sbows Wbereon tbe stars in secret influenae comment ; Wben I perceive tbat men as plants increase, Cbeered and cbeck'd even by tbe self-sarae sky, Vaunt in Ibeir youtbful sap, at beigbt decrease. And wear their brave State out of memory ; Tben tbe conceit of tbis inconstant stay Sets you most rieb in youtb before my sigbt, Wbere wasteful Time debatetb witb Decay, To cbange your day of youtb to sullied nigbt ; And all in war witb Time for love of you, As be takes from you, I engraft you new. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, 55 XVI. But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time ? And fortify yourself in your decay With means more blessed than my harren rhyme ? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, Much liker tiian your painted counterfeit; So should the lines of life that life repair, Which this time's pencil or my pupil pen, Neither in inward worth nor outward fair, Can make you live yourself in eyes of men. To give away yourself keeps yourself still, And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill XVII. Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fiird with your most high deserts ? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, * This poet lies ; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces/ So should my papers, yellow'd with their age, Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be term'd a poet*s rage And stretched metre of an antique song; But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice, — in it and in my rhyme. 56 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, XVIII. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough winds do shake the darling» buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a data ; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd ; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By Chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd j But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest : So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. XIX. Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood ; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-liv'd phoenix in her blood ; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets; But I forbid thee one most heinous crime : O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen ; Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. Yet, do thy worst, old Time ; despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 57 XX. A woman's face with Nature's own band painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion ; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion ; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; A man in hue, all hues in his Controlling, Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created ; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, feil a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick*d thee out for women*s pleasure, Mine be thy love, and thy love*s use their treasure. XXI. So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr*d by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea*s rieh gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. O, let me, true in love, but truly write, And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fix'd in heaven*s air : Let them say more that like of hearsay well; I will not praise that purpose not to seil. 58 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, XXII. My glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date ; But when in thee time's furrows I behold, Then look I death my days should expiate. For all that beauty that doth cover thee Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me : How can I then be eider than thou art ? O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary As I, not for myself, but for thee will j Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary As tender nurse her habe from faring ill. Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain ; Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again. XXIII. As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put besides his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too niuch rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart. So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love 's rite. And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, 0*ercharg*d with bürden of mine own love's might. O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, Who plead for love and look for recompense More than that tongue that more hath more expressed. O, learn to read what silent love hath writ; To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. 59 XXIV. Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath steird Thy beauty's form in table of my heart ; My body is the frame wherein 't is held, And perspective it is best painter's art. For through the painter must you see his skill, To find where your true image pictur'd lies ; Which in my bosom*s shop is hanging still, That hath his Windows glazed with thine eyes. Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are Windows to my breast, where- through the sun Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee ; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art, — They draw but what they see, know not the heart XXV. Let those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlook*d for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun's eye, And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd : Then happy I, that love and am belov'd Where I may not remove nor be remov'd. 6o SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. XXVI. Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit: Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, But that I hope some good conceit of thine In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it; Till whatsoever star that guides my moving Points on me graciously with fair aspect, And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving, To show me worthy of thy sweet respect : Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee ; Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me. XXVII. Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tir'd, But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body's work 's expir'd ; For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee. And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my souFs imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous and her old face new. Lo ! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee and for myself no quiet find. SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS. 6l XXVIII. How can I then return in happy plight, That am debarr'd the benefit of rest ? When day's oppression is not eas'd by night, But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd ? And each, though enemies to either's reign, Do in consent shake hands to torture me ; The one by toil, the other to complain How far I toil, still farther ofF from thee. I teil the day, to please bim thou art bright And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night, When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even. But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger. XXIX. When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast State, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rieh in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least ; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my State, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate: For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my State with kings. 62 SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS. XXX. When to the sessions of sweet silent ihought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's wastes Then can I drown an eye, unus*d to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love*s long since canc.eird woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish*d sight; Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe teil o*er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend. All losses are restor'd and sorrows end. XXXI. Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead, And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie ! Thou art the grave where buried love dolh live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give ; That due of many now is thine alone: Their images I lov'd I view in thee, And thou, all they, hast all the all of me. SHAKESPEARE: S SONNE TS. 63 XXXII. / ' / ■ ■ If thou sijrvive my \yell-content^d day, ^ / When th^t churl Death rpy bones with dust shall Cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey^ These poor rüde lines of thy deceksed lover, Compare them witlj the bettering of the time, And thoügh they be outstripp'd by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men. O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: * Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage; But since he died and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I '11 read, his for his love.' XXXIII. Füll many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride, With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from ihe forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all-triumphant splendour on my brow ; But out, alack ! he was but one hour mine, The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth. 64 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, XXXIV. Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke ? 'T is not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such a salve can speak That heals the wound and eures not the disgrace : Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief j Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss : The ofFender's sorrow lends but weak relief To him that bears the strong ofFence's cross. Ah ! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds. And they are rieh and ransom all ill deeds. XXXV. No more be griev*d at that which thou hast done : Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud ; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. All men make faults, and even I in this, Authorizing thy trespass with compare, Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are; For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense — Thy adverse party is thy advocate — And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence. Such civil war is in my love and hate That I an accessary needs must be To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 6$ XXXVI. Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one ; So shall those blots that do with me remain Without thy help by me be borne alone. In our two loves there is biit one respect, Though in our lives a separable spite, Whicli though it alter not löve's sole effect, Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight. I may not evermore acknowledge thee, Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, Nor thou with public kindness honour me, Unless thou take that honour from thy name : But do not so ; I love thee in such sort As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report. XXXVII. As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth ; For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, Or any of these all, or all, or more, Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit, I make my love engrafted to this störe. So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd, Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give That I in thy abundance am suffic'd And by a part of all thy glory live. Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee : This wish I have; then ten times happy me! K 66 SHAKESPEARE' S SONN EIS. XXXVIII. How can my Muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgär paper to rehearse ? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; For who 's so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou thyself dost give invention light? Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth Than those old nine which rhymers invocate ; And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth Eternal numbers to outlive long date. If my slight Muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. XXXIX. O, how thy worth with m anners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me ? What can mine own praise to mine own seif bring? And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee? Even for this let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one, That by this Separation I may give That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone. O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove, Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave To entertain the time with thoughts of love, Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, And that thou teachest how to make one twain, £y praising him here who doth hence remain ! SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. 67 XL. Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all ; What hast thou then more than thou hadst before ? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call ; All mine was thine before thou hadst this more. Then if for my love thou my love receivest, I cannot blame thee for my love thou usestj But yet be blam*d, if thou thyself deceivest By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, Although thou steal thee all my poverty ; And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury. Lascfvious grace, in whom all ill well shows, Kill me with spites ; yet we must not be foes. XLI. Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Thy beauty and thy years füll well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art. Gentle thou art and therefore to be won, Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd ; And when a woman wooes, what woman's son Will sourly leave her tili she have prevail'd ? Ay me ! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, Who lead thee in their riot even there Where thou art forc*d to break a twofold truth,- Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, Thine, by thy beauty being false to me. 68 SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS. XLII. That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly; That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving ofFenders, thus I will excuse ye : Thou dost love her, because thou know*st I love her; And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. If I lose thee, my loss is my love*s gain. And losing her, my friend hath found that loss ; Both find each other, and I lose both twain, And both for my sake lay on me this cross : But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone. XLIII. When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected ; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on ihee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow\s form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stayl All days are nights to see tili I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. 69 XLIV. If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land As soon as think the place where he would be. But, ah ! thought kills me that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that, so much of earth and water wrought, I must attend time's leisure with my moan, Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either's woe. XLV. The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide ; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to death, oppress*d with melancholy i Until life*s composition be recur'd By those swift messengers return 'd from thee, Who even but now come back again, assur*d Of thy fair health, recounting it to me. This told, I joy ; but then, no longer glad, I send them back again, and straight grow sad. ^9 70 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. XLVI. Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight ; Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,- - A closet never pierc*d with crystal eyes, — But the defendant doth that plea deny, And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To 'cide this title is impanelled A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart, And by their verdict is determined The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part ; As thus: mine eye's due is thy outward part. And my heart's right thy in ward love of heart. XLVII. Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart's guest And in his thoughts of love doth share a part So, either by thy picture or my love, Thyself away art present still with me; For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, And I am still with them and they with thee ; Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight Awakes my heart to heart's and eye*s delight. SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. 71 XLVIII. How careful was I, when I took my way, Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, That to my use it might unused stay From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust! But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, Most worthy com fort, now my greatest grief, Thou, best of dearest and mine only care, Art left the prey of every vulgär thief. Thee have I not lock'd up in any ehest, Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art, Within the gentle closure of my breast, From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part; And even thence thou wilt be stolen, I fear, For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear. XLIX. Against that time, if ever that time come, When I shall see thee frown on my defects, Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum, Caird to that audit by advis'd respects ; Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye, When love, converted from the thing it was, Shall reasons find of settled gravi ty, — Against that time do I ensconce me here Within the knowledge ofmine own desert. And this my band against myself uprear, To guard the lawful reasons on thy part : To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws, Since why to love I can allege no cause. 72 SHAKESPEARES SONNETS, L. How heavy dö I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary traveFs end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, * Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend \* The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, As if by some instinct the wretch did know His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee: The bloody spur cannot provoke him on That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide ; Which heavily he answers with a groan, More Sharp to me than spurring to his side ; For that same groan doth put this in my mind,^ My grief lies onward and my joy behind. LI. Thus can my love excuse the slow offence Of my duU bearer when from thee I speed : From where thou art why should I haste me thence ? Till I return, of posting is no need. O, what excuse will my poor beast then find, When swift extremity can seem but slow? Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind; In winged speed no molion shall I know : Then can no horse with my desire keep pace ; Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made, Shall neigh — no dull flesh — in his fiery race; But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade : Since from thee going he went wilful-slow, Towards thee I '11 run, and give him leave to go. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, 73 LH. So am I as the rieh, whose blessed key Can bring him to bis sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every hour survey, For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, Since, seldom Coming, in the long year set, Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, Or captain jewels in the carcanet. So is the time that keeps you as my ehest, Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, To make some special instant special blest, By new unfolding bis imprison'd pride. Blessed are you, whosie worthiness gives scope, Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope. LI II. What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of stränge shadows on you tend? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you ; On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set. And you in Grecian tires are painted new: Speak of the spring and foison of the year, The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear ; And you in every blessed shape we know. In all externa! grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart. 74 SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS, LIV. O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have füll as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ; But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade. Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made : And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall vade, niy verse distills your truth. LV. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; But you shall shine more bright in these Contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work pf masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and. all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, tili the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. SffAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 75 LVI. Sweet love, renew thy force ; be it not said Thy edge should biunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, To-morrow sharpen'd in bis former might: So, love, be thou ; although to-day thou fill Thy hungry eyes even tili they wink with fullness, To-morrow see again, and do not kill The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.* Let this sad interim like the ocean be Which parts the shore where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see Return of love, more blest may be the view ; Else call it winter, which being füll of care Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare. LVII. Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor Services to do, tili you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour When you have bid your servant once adieu ; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought Save, where you are how happy you make those. So true a fool is love that in your will, Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill. 76 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, LVIII. That god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your band tbe account of bours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure ! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty ; And patience, tarne to sufferance, bide each check, Withoüt accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your charter is so strong That you yourself may privilege your time To what you will ; to you it doth belong Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ; Not blame your pleasure, be.it ill or well. LIX. If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd, Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burthen of a former child 1 O, that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done ! That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame ; Whether we are mended, or whether better they, Or whether revolution be the same. O, sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise. SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS, 77 LX. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end ; £ach changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing Stands but for his scythe to mow ; And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel band. LXl. Is it thy will thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night ? Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight ? Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee So far from home into my deeds to pry, To find out shames and idle hours in me, The scope and tenour of thy jealousy ? O, no ! thy love, though much, is not so great : It is my love that keeps mine eye awake ; Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake : For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near. 78 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. LXII. Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye And all my soul and all my every part; And for this sin there is no remedy, It is so grounded inward in my heart. Methinks no face so gracious is as mine, No shape so true, no truth of such account| And for myself mine own worth do define, As I all other in all worths surmount. But when my glass shows me myself indeed. Bated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity, Mine own self-love quite contrary I read; Seif so self-loving were iniquity. 'T is thee, myself, that for myself I praise, Painting my age with beauty of thy days. LXIII. Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn, When hours have drain'd his blood and fiird his brow With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful mom Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night, And all those beauties whereof now he's king Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight, Stealing away the treasure of his spring — For such a time do I now fortify Against confounding age's cruel knife, That he shall never cut from memory My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life ; His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green. SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS. 79 LXIV. When I have seen by Time's feil band defac'd The rieh proud cost of outworn buried age, 'When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd And brass eternal slave to mortal rage, When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing störe with loss and loss with störe, — When I have seen such interchange of State, Or State itself confounded to decay, Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. LXV. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o*er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays ? O fearful meditation ! where, alack, Shall Time's best jewel from Time's ehest lie hid? Or what strong band can hold bis swift foot back? Or who bis spoil of beauty can forbid ? O, none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright. 8o SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. LXVl. Tir'd with all these, fpr restful death I cry, — As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn. And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly doctor-like Controlling skill, And simple truth miscaU'd simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill ; Tir'd with all these, from these would 1 be gonC;, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. LXVIL Ah! wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve And lace itself with his society? Why should false painting imitate his cheek. And steal dead seeing of his living hue ? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is, ßeggar*d of blood to blush through lively veins? For she hath no exchequer now but his. And, proud of many, lives upon his gains. O, him she Stores, to show what wealth she had In days long since, before these last so bad ! SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 8l LXVIII. Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty liv'd and died as flowers do now, Before these bastard signs of fair were born, Or durst inhabit on a living brow ; Before the golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To live a second life on second head ; Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay : In him those holy antique hours are seen, Without all Ornament, itself and true, Making no summer of another's green, Robbing no old to dress his beauty new; And him as for a map doth Nature störe, To show false Art what beauty was of yore. LXIX. Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend ; All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due, Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commehd. Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd ; But those same tongues that give thee so thine own In other accents do this praise confound By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. They look into the beauty of thy mind, And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds ; Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind, To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds : But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, The soil is this, that thou dost common grow. F 32 SHAA'ESFEARE'S SONNE TS, LXX. That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair ; The Ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time ; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days, Either not assail'd or victor being charg'd ; Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, To tie up envy evermore enlarg'd; If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show, Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe. LXXI. No longer mourn for nie when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly suUen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell ; Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot If thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay, Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone. SHAKESPEARETS SONNE TS. 83 LXXII. O, lest the world should task you to recite What merit liv'd in me, that you should love After my death, dear love, forget me quite, For you in nie can nothing worthy prove ; Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I Than niggard truth would willingly impart: O, lest your true love may seem false in this, That you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me nor you ! For I am sham'd by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth. LXXIII. That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death 's second seif, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 84 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. LXXIV. But be contented : when that feil arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due| My spirit is thine, the better part of me. So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead, The coward conquest of ä wretch's knife, Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that is that which it contains. And that is this, and this with thee remains. LXXV. So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground ; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found : Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure ; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure ; Sometime all füll with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look ; Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away. SUAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 85 LXXVI. Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from Variation or quick change ? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods and to Compounds stränge ? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost teil my name, Showing their birth and where they did proceed ? O, know, sweet love, I always write of you, And you and love are still my argument ; So all my best is dressing old words new, Spending again what is already spent: For as ihe sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told. LXXVII. Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste ; The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, And of this book this learning mayst thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show Of mouthed graves will give thee memory ; Thou by thy diaVs shady stealth mayst know Time's thievish progress to eternity. Look, what thy memory can not contain Commit to these waste blanks,/nd thou shalt find Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain, To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book. 30 86 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, LXXVIII. So oft have I invok'd thee for my Muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse, As every alien pen hath got my use And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learned's wing And given grace a double majesty. Yet be most proud of that which I compile, Whose influenae is thine and born of thee : In others' works thou dost but mend the style, And arts with thy sweet graces graced be ; But thou art all my art, and dost advance As high as learning my rüde ignorance. LXXIX. Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious numbers are decay'd, And my sick Muse doth give another place. I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument Deserves the travail of a worthier pen, Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He robs thee of and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour ; beauty doth he give, And found it in thy cheek ; he can afford No praise to thee but what in thee doth live. Then thank him not for that which he doth say, Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. 87 LXXX. O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name. And in the praise thereof spends all bis might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame! But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, Tbe bumble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark, inferior far to bis, On your broad main doth wilfully appear. Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride ; Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat, He of tall building and of goodly pride. Then if he thrive and I be cast away, The worst was this, — my love was my decay. LXXXI. Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten ; From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die; The earth can yield me but a common grave, When you entombed in men*s eyes shall lie. Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, And tongues to be your being shall rehearse When all the breathers of this world are dead ; You still shall live — such virtue hath my pen — Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. 88 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, LXXXII. I grant thou wert not married to my Muse, And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook The dedicated words which writers use Of their fair subject, blessing every book. Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, Finding thy worth a limit past niy praise, And therefore art enforc'd to seek anew Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. And do so, love ; yet when they have devis'd What strained touches rhetoric can lend, Thou truly fair wert truly sympathiz'd In true piain words by thy true-telling friend ; And their gross painting might be better us'd Where cheeks need blood ; in ihee it is abus'd. LXXXIII. I never saw that you did painting need. And therefore to your fair no painting set ; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed The barren tender of a poet*s debt ; And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself being extant well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your poets can in praise devise. shakespeare:s sonne ts, 89 LXXXIV. Who is it that says most ? which can say more Than this rieh praise, that you alone are you ? In whose confine immured is the störe Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, if he can teil That you are you, so dignifies his story. Let him but copy what in you is writ, Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, Making his style admired every where. You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. LXXXV. My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compilVl, Reserve their character with golden quill And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd. I think good thoughts whilst other write good words, And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry * Amen ' To every hymn that able spirit affords In polish'd form of well-refined pen. Hearing you prais*d, I say * 'T is so, 't is true/ And to the most of praise add something more ; But that is in my thought, whose love to you, Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. Then others for the breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. 90 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. LXXXVT. Was it the proud füll sail of bis great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew ? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that Struck me dead? No, neither he, nor his compeers by night Giving him aid, my verse astonished. He, nor that affable familiär ghost Which nightly gulls him with intelligence, As Victors of my silence cannot boast j I was not sick of any fear from thence : But when your countenance filFd up his line, Then lack*d I matter ; that enfeebled mine. Lxxxvir. Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate: The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; My bonds in thee are all determinate. For how do I hold thee but by thy granting ? And for that riches where is my deserving ? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, eise mistaking ; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making. Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. SHAA'ESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 91 LXXXVIII. When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side against myself I '11 fight, And pröve thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted, That thou in losing me shalt win much glory: And I by this will be a gainer too ; For, bending all my loving thoughts on thee, The injuries that to myself I do, Doing thee vantage, double-vrfntage me. Such is my love, to thee I so bdlong, That for thy right myself will bear all wrong. LXXXIX. Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence ; Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, Against thy reasons making no defence. Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, To set a form upon desired change, As I '11 myself disgrace : knowing thy will, I will acquaintance strangle and look stränge, Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong And haply of our old acquaintance teil. For thee against myself I '11 vow debate, Fof I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. 92 SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS. XC. Then hate me when thou wilt — if ever, now; Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, And do not drop in for an after-loss. Ah, do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe ; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite, But in the onset come; so shall I taste At first the very woret of fortune's might, And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, Compar*d with loss of thee will not seem so. XCI. Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their bodies* force, Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill, Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse ; And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest : But these particulars are not my measure ; All these I better in one general best. Thy love is better than high birth to me, Richer than wealth, prouder than garments* cost, Of more delight than hawks or horses be ; And, having thee, of all men's pride I boast: Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take All this away and me most wretched make. SHAKESPEARE^S SONNETS. 93 XCII. But do thy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assured mine, And life no longer than thy love will stay, For it depends upon that love of thine. Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, When in the least of them mv life hath end. I see a better State to me belongs Than that which on thy humour doth depend ; Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. O, what a happy title do I find, Happy to have thy love, happy to die ! But what 's so blessed-fair that fears no blot ? Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. XCIII. So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband ; so love's face May still seem love to me, though alter'd new, Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place ; For there can live no hatred in thine eye, Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. In many's looks the false heart's history Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles stränge, But heaven in thy creation did decree That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be, Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness teil. How like Eve*s apple doth thy beauty grow, If ihy sweet virtue answer not thy show ! 94 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. XCIV. They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, They rightly do inherit heaven's graces And husband nature's riches from expense ; They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others but Stewards of their excellence. The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die, But if that flower with base infection meet, The basest weed outbraves his dignity: For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds : Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. XCV. How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name ! O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose ! That tongue that teils the story of thy days, Making lascivious comments on thy sport, Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise ; Naming thy name blesses an ill report. O, what a mansion have those vices got Which for their habitation chose out thee, Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot, And all things turn to fair that eyes can see ! Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege; The hardest knife ill-us*d doth lose his edge. SHAKESPEÄRE'S SONNETS, 95 XCVI. Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness ; Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport; Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less \ Thou mak*st faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteem'd, So are those errors that in thee are seen To truths translated and for true things deem'd. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, If like a lanib he could his looks translate ! How many gazers mightst thou lead away, If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state ! But do not so ; I love thee in such sort As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report. XCVII. How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! What freezings have I feit, what dark days seen t What old December's bareness every where ! And yet this time remov'd was summer*s time, The teeming autumn, big with rieh increase, Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, Like widow*d wombs after their lords' decease ; Yet this abundant issue seem'd to nie But hope of orphans and unfatherM fruit, P'or summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And, thou away, the very birds are mute j Or, if they sing, *t is wiih so dull a cheer That leaves look pale, dreading the winter *s near. 96 SHAKESPEARE^S SONNE TS, XCVIII. From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap*d with him. Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer's story teil, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew ; Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose : They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow I with these did play. XCIX. The forward violet thus did I chide : Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair ; The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair ; A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, And to his robbery had annex*d thy breath ; But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS^ 97 C Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might ? Spendest thou thy fury on some worthless song, Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent ; Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem And gives thy pen both skill and argument Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey, If Time have any wrinkle graven there ; If any, be a satire to decay, And make Time's spoils despised every where. Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life \ So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife. CI. O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed ? Both truth and beauty on my love depends ; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse : wilt thou not haply say * Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd ; Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay; But best is best, if never intermix'd ' ? Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so ; for 't lies in thee To make him much outlive a gilded tomb, And to be prais'd of ages yet to be. Then do thy office, Muse ; I teach thee how To make him seem long hence as he shows now. G 98 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. CIL My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming ; I love not less, though less the show appear : That love is merchandiz'd whose rieh esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new and then but in the spring When I was wont to greet it with my lays, As Philomel in summer's front doth sing And stops her pipe in growth of riper days ; Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song. cm. Alack, what poverty my muse brings forth, That, having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside ! O, blame nie not, if I no more can write ! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt invention quite, Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace. Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, To mar the subject that before was well ? For to no other pass my verses tend Than of your graces and your gifts to teil ; And more, much more, than in my verse can sit Your own glass shows you when you look in it. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. 99 CIV. To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers* pride, Three beauteous Springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn*d, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah ! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceiv'd ; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion and mine eye may be deceiv'd : For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred : Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. CV. Let not my love be calFd idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous Excellence; Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd, One thing expressing, leaves out difference. * Fair, kind, and true * is all my argument, * Fair, kind, and true * varying to other words ; And in this change is my invention spent, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope afTords. * Fair, kind, and true ' have often liv'd alone, Which three tili now never kept seat in one. loo SHAKESPEARE'S SO N NETS. CVI. When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of band, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. CVII. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd, And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, And peace proclairas olives of endless age. Now with the drops of this most balmy time My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Since, spite of him, I '11 live in this poor rhyme, While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes; And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants* crests and tombs of brass are spent. SHAKESPEARES SONNETS. loi CVIII. What 's in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit ? (What *s new to speak, what new to register, That may express my love or thy dear merit ? Nothing, sweet boy ; but yet, like prayers divine, I must each day say o'er the very same, Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. .So that eternal love in love*s fresh case Weighs not the dust and injury of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquity for aye his page, Finding the first conceit of love there bred Where time and outward form would show it dead. CIX. O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem'd my fiame to qualify. As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth He: That is my home of love ; if I have rang*d, Like him that travels I return again. Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reign'd All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stain*d, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good ; ' For nothing this wide universe I call, ^ Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all. 102 SHAKESPEARES SONNETS. CX. Alas, 't is true I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new ; Most true it is that I have look'd on truth Askance and strangely: but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love. Now all is done, have what shall have no end ; Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an older friend, A god in love, to whom I am confin'd. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most most loving breast CXI. O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's band. Pity me then and wish I were renew'd, Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection ; No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance, to correct correction. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye Even that your pity is enough to eure me. SHAKESPEARES SONNETS. 103 CXII. Your love and pity doth the impression fiU Which vulgär scandal stamp'd upon my brow ; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow ? You are my all the world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue ; None eise to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others' voices, that my adder's sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense : You are so strongly in my purpose bred That all the world besides methinks are dead. CXIII. Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, And that which governs me to go about Doth part his Function and is partly blind, Seems seeing, but effectually is out ; For it no form delivers to the heart Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch. Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch ; For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, The mountain or the sea, the day or night, The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature : Incapable of more, replete with you, My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue. I04 SHAKESPEARE: S SONNE TS, CXIV. Or whether doth roy mind, being crown'd with you, Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alcherny^ To make of monsters and things indigest Such cherubins as your sweet seif resemble, Creating every bad a perfect best, As fast as objects to his beams assemble ? O, 't is the first ; 't is flattery in my seeing, And my great mind most kingly drinks it up : Mine eye well knows what with his gust is greeing, And to his palate doth prepare the cup ; If it be poison'd, 't is the lesser sin That mine eye loves it and doth first begin. cxv. Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer ; Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most füll flame should afterwards burn clearer. But, reckoning time, whose million'd accidents Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, Divert strong minds to the course of altering things, Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny, Might I not then say * Now I love you best,' When I was certain o*er incertainty, Crowning the present, doubting of the rest ? Love is a habe ; then might I not say so, To give füll growth to that which still doth grow ? SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 105 CXVI. Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove : O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; It is the Star to every wandering bark, Whose worth 's unknown, although his height be taken. Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come ; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. CXVII. Accuse me thus : that I have scanted all Wherein I should your great deserts repay, Forgot upon your dearest love to call, Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day ; That I have frequent been with unknown minds And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right ; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds Which should transport me farthest from your sight, Book both my wilfulness and errors down, And on just proof surmise accumulate ; Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate; Since my appeal says I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of your love. I06 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, CXVIII. Like as, to make our appetites more keen, With eager Compounds we our palate urge, As, to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we purge, Even so, being füll of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding, And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness^ To be diseas'd ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, to anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd And brought to medicine a healthful State Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd ; But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you. CXIX. What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distiird from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win ! What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never ! How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted In the distraction of this madding fever! O benefit of ill ! now I find true That better is by evil still made better; And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuk'd to my content, And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. 107 CXX. That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow which I then did feel Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel. For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I by yours, youVe pass'd a hell of time, And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime. O, that our night of woe might have remember'd My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits ! But that your trespass now becomes a fee ; Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. CXXI. T is better to be vile than vile esteem'd, When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd Not by our feeling but by others' seeing; For why should others' false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood ? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good ? No, I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel ; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown ; Unless this general evil they maintain. All men are bad, and in their badness reign. io8 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS, CXXII. Thy gift,thy tables, are within my brain Füll character'd with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date, even to eternity ; Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist ; Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part . Of thee, thy record never can be missed. That poor retention could not so much hold, Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score ; Therefore to give them from me was I bold, To trust those tables that receive thee more : To keep an adjunct to remember thee Were to import forgetfulness in me. CXXIII. No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing stränge ; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past, For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by thy continual haste. This I do vow and this shall ever be : I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee. SHAKESPEARKS SONNETS. 109 CXXIV. If my dear love were but the child of State, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd, As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. No, it was builded far from accident ; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralied discontent, Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls : It fears not policy, that heretic, Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, But all alone Stands hugely politic, That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers. To this I witness call the fools of time, Which die for goodness, who have liv'd for crime. CXXV. Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which prove more short than waste or ruining ? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, For Compound sweet foregoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No, let me be obsequious in thy heart. And take thou my oblation,poor but free, Which is not mix^d with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn'd informer ! a true soul When most impeach'd Stands least in thy control. HO SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. CXXVI. O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour ; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st Thy lovers withering as thy sweet seif grow'st ; If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill. Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure ! She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure ; Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be, And her quietus is to render thee. CXXVII. In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name ; But now is black beauty's successive heir, And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame : For since each hand hath put on nature's power, Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face, Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black, Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, Slandering creation with a false esteem; Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, That every tongue says beauty should look so. SHAKESPEARE'S SO N NETS, m CXXVIII. How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With tby sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks (hat nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap; At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ! To be so tickled, they would change their State And Situation with those dancing chips, O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, Making dead wood more blest than living lips. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. CXXIX. The expeiise of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action ; and tili action, lust Is perjur'd, murtherous, bloody, füll of blame, Savage, extreme, rüde, cruel, not to trust, Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad ; Mad in pursuit and in possession so ; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; A bliss in proof, and prov'd, a very woe ; Before, a joy propos'd ; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows ; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. 112 SUAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. CXXX. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ; Coral is far more red than her Ups' red ; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have Seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks ; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound ; I grant I never saw a goddess go ; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground s And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. CXXXI. Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold Thy face hath not the power to make love groan : To say they err I dare not be so bold, Although I swear it to myself alone. And, to be sure that is not false I swear, A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, One on another's neck, do witness bear Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place. In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds, And thence this slander^ as I think, proceeds. SNAA'ESFEAKE'S SO!V/VETS. Thiue eyes I love, and they, as pitying mc, Knowing tliy heart torments me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretly ruth upon my pain ; And truly not the morning sun ofheaven Betler becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that füll star that usfiers in the eveii Doth half that glory lo the sober west, As those two mourniog eyes become thy face. O, let it then as weil beseem thy heart To mourn for me, since mourning doth ihee grace. And suit thy pity like in every part] Then will I swear beauty herseif is black And all they foul that thy complexion lack. cxxxin. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me ! Is 't noi enough to torture me alone, But slave to slauery my sweel'st friend must be ? Me from myself Ihy cruel eye halb taken, And my next seif thon harder hast engross'd: Of him, myself, and ihee, I am forsaken ; A torment thrice thrcefold ihus to be cross'd. Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bau' Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be bis guard ; Thou canst not dien use rigour in my gaol: And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in Ihee. Perforce am thine, and all that is in me. 114 SHAKESPEARE' S SONNE TS. CXXXIV. So, now I have confess'd that he is thine, And I myself am mortgag'd to thy will, Myself I '11 forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still : But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous and he is kind ; He learn'd but surety-like to write for me Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. The Statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use, And sue a friend came debtor for my sake ; So him I lose through my unkind abuse. Him have I lost ; thou hast both him and me He pays the whole, and yet am I not free. CXXXV. Whoever hath her wish,thou hast thy *Will/ And * Will* to boot,and * Will' in overplus ; More ihan enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou,whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine ? Shall will in others seem right gracious. And in my will no fair acceptance shine ? The sea, all water, yet receives rain still. And in abundance addeth to his störe 3 So thou, being rieh in * Will,' add to thy ' Will ' One will of mine, to make thy large * Will ' more. Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill ; Think all but one, and me in that one * Will.' SHAKESPEARE'S SOjVNETS. If ihy soul check lliee thal I come so near, Swear to lliy blind soul that I was thy ' Will," And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there ; Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. ' Wil! ' will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fiU it füll wilh wills, and my will one. In ihings of great receipt with ease we pmve Among a nuinber one is reckon'd none: Then in the tiumber let me pass untofd, Though in ihy store's acconnt I one must be ; For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold Tbat nothing me, a sonielhing sweet to ihee ; Make but my name thy love,and love that slitl, And then thou lov'st me, for my name is ' Will,' cxxxvn, Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thoti to mine eyes, That ibey behold, and see not whal they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what tlie best is take llie worst to be. If eyes corrupt by over-pariial looks Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride, Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, Whereto the judgmeni of my heart is tied? Why should my heart think that a several plot Which my heart knows the wide world's common placeä Or mine eyes, seeiiig this, s.iy ihis is not, To put fair trulh upon so foul a face? In things right true my heart and eyes have crr'd. And to ihis false plague are they now iransfcrr'd. 1 1 6 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. CXXXVIII. Wheti my love syirears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she liesi, That she might think me some untutor'd youth, Unlearnedin the worJd's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, AI though she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue; On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old ? O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told ; Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our fauUs by lies we flatternd be. CXXXIX. O, call not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart ; Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue; Use power with power, and slay me not by art. Teil me thou lov'st elsewhere, but in my sight, Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside; What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might Is more than my o'er-press*d defence can bide ? Let me excuse thee : ah ! my love well knows Her pretty looks have been mine enemies. And therefore from my face she turns my foes, That they elsewhere nqiight dart their injuries ; Yet do not so, but since I am near slain Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 1 1 7 CXL. Be wise as thou art cruel ; do not press My tongue-ded patience with too much disdain, Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to teil me so, As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know ; For if I should despair, I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee : Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. That I may not be so, nor thou belied, Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go Wide. CXLI. In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note, But 't is my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote ; Nor are mine ears with thy tongue*s tune delighted, Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited To any sensual feast with thee alone : But my five wits nor my five senses can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man, Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be ; Only my plague thus far I count my gain, That she that makes me sin awards me pain. 22 Il8 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. CXLIl. Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: O, but with mine compare thou thine own State, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving ; Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, That have protan'd their scarlet Ornaments And seard false bonds of love as oft as mine, Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents. Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee; Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, By self-example may st thou be denied ! CXLIII. Lo ! as a careful housewife runs to catch One of her feather'd creatures broke away, Sets down her habe and makes all swift dispatch In pursuit of the thing she would have stay, Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent To follow that which flies before her face, Not prizing her poor infant's discontent ; So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind: But if thou catch ihy hope, turn back to me, And play the mother's part, kiss nie, be kind ; So will I pray that thou mayst have thy ' Will,' If thou turn back, and my loud crying still. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. 119 CXLIV. Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which' like two spirits do suggest me still ; The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour*d ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, Wooing his purity with her foul pride. And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend Suspect I may, yet not directly teil ; But being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell : Yet this shall I ne*er know, but live in doubt Till my bad angel fire my good one out. CXLV. Those lips that Love's own band did make Breath'd forth the sound that said ' I hate ' To me that languish'd for her sake; But when she saw my woeful State, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was us*d in giving gentle doom. And taught it thus anew to greet. ' I hate ' she alter'd with an end, That follow'd it as gentle day Doth follow night, who like a fiend From heaven to hell is flown away ; * I hate ' from hate away she threw, And sav'd my life, saying * not you.' 120 SHAKESPEARE^S SQNNETS. CXLVI. Poor souI, the centre of my sinful earth, Press'd by these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and sufier dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? Shall worroSy inheritors of this excess, £at up thy charge ? is this thy body's end ? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss. And let that pine to aggravate thy störe ; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; Within be fed, without be rieh no more : So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there 's no more dying then. CXLVII. My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Fast eure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest ; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly expressed ; For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 121 CXLVIII. O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight I Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright ? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be not, then love doth well denote Love's eye is not so true as all men's no. How can it ? O, how can Love's eye be true, That is so vex'd with watching and with tears? No marvel then, though I mistake my view ; The sun itself sees not tili heaven clears. O cunning Love 1 with tears thou keep'st me blind, Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find. CXLIX. Canst thou, O cruel ! say I love thee not, When I against myself with thee partake ? Do I not think on thee when I forgot Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake.^ Who hateth thee that I do call my friend ? On whom frown*st thou that I do fiiwn upon ? Nay, if thou lower'st on me, do I not spend Revenge upon myself with present moan? What merit do I in myself respect, That is so proud thy service to despise, When all my best doth worship thy defect, Commanded by the motion of thine eyes } But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind ; Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind. 122 SHAKESPEARES SONNE TS. CL. O, from what power hast thou this powerful might With insufficiency my heart to sway? To make me give the lie to my true sight, And swear that brightness doth not grace the day? Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, That in the very refuse of thy deeds There is such strength and warrantise of skill That, in my mind, thy*worst all best exceeds? Who taught thee how to make me love thee more The more I hear and see just cause of hate? O, though I love what others do abhor, With others thou shouldst not abhor my State; If thy unworthiness rais*d love in me, More worthy I to be belov'd of thee. CLL Love is too young to know what consciehce is ; Yet who knows not conscience is born of love ? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss. Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet seif prove; For, thou betraying me, I do betray My nobler part to my gross body's treason ; My soul doth teil my body that he may Triumph in love ; flesh stays no farther reason, But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call Her * love * for whose dear love I rise and fall SHAKESPEARKS SONNE TS. 123 CLII. In loving thee thoii know'st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing, In act thv bed-vow broke and new faith torn In vowing new hate after new love bearing. But wby of two oaths* breach do I accuse thee, When I break twenty ? I am perjur'd most ; For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee, And all my honest faith in thee is lost : For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness, Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy, And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, Or made them swear against the thing they see ; For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I, To swear against the truth so foul a lie ! CLIII. Cupid laid by bis brand, and feil asleep: A maid of Dian's this' advantage found. And bis love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground ; Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love A dateless lively heat, still to endure. And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove Against stränge maladies a sovereign eure. But at my mistress' eye Love*s brand new-fir*d, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast ; I, sick withal, the help of bath desir'd, And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest, But found no eure : the bath for my help lies Where Cupid got new fire — my mistress* eyes. SHAKBSPEAJiE'S S0^JV£7S. The Utile Love-god lying once asieep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life lo keep Game tripping by ; but in her maiden band The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd, And so the general of hot desire Was sieeping by a virgiii band disarm'd. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from Love's fire took heat perpeiual, Growing a bath and heallhful remedy For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall, Game there for eure, and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. NOTES, ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES. Abbott (or Gr.)» Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar (third edition). A. S., Anglo-Saxon. A. V., Authorized Version of the Bible (1611). B. and F., Beatunont and Fletcher. B. J., Ben Jonson. Camb. ed., " Cambridge edition" of Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Wrig^t. Cf. {fi(ntfer\ compare. Coli., Collier (second edition). D., Dyce (second edition). Dowden, Prof. E. Dowden's eds. of the Sanneis (see p. 11, foot-note, above). Gildon, Chas. Gildon's ed. of Shakespeare's Poems (London, 1710). H., Hudson (" Harvard" edition). Halliwell, J. O. Halliwell (folio ed. of Shakespeare). Id. {idem)f the same. K., Knight (second edition). Lintott, the 1709 ed. of the Poems (see p. 10 above). Massey, Gerald Massey's Shtikespeare'*s Sonnets^ etc^London, 1866). Cf. p. 21 above. Nares, Giossaty, edited by Halliwell and Wright (London, 1859). Palgrave, F. T. Palgrave's ed. of Shakespeare's Son^^s and Sonnets (London, 1879). Prol., Prologue. S., Shakespeare. Schmidt, A. Schmidt*s Shakespeare- Lexicon (Berlin, 1874). Sewell, Geo. Sewell's ed. ofthe Poems (^\h. vol. of Pope's ed. of 1725). Sr., Singer. St., Staunton. Theo., Theobald. W., R. Grant White. Walker, Wm. Sidney Walker's Critical Examination of the Text of Shakes/^eare (London, 1860). Warb., Warburton. Wb,, Webster's Dictionary (revised quarto edition of 1879). Worc, Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition). The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's Plays will be readily understood ; as r. N. for Twelfth Night, Cor. for Coriolantis, 3 Hen. VI. for The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth, etc. P. P. refers to The Passionate Pilgrim ; V. and A . to Venus and Adonis; L. C. to Lover's Complaint ; and Sonn, to the Sonnets. When the abbreviation of the name of a play is followed by a reference to Page, Rolfe' s edition ofthe play is nieant. The numbers of the lines in the references are those of the " Globe " ed. NOTES. The DEnnATioR— n« cnly irgtttf. Boswell temarks: ••■ wMrr is merely ihe pcrson whof«/ ot {•retnres a ihing. So in n SaHnmttitix : 'I have some coasin-gennans aE court shall * are n« Snsly tntich'd Thi «nailül »cniplc of her CMeUence, Henelf t^ gkiv of a cndilcr, Both Ihünluinil use," Sieevens canipaics Milien, Comta, 67g: " Why ahDiild yuu be so cnid tn yonrsctf, Fnr grntle nMRe, and anfr ttalicAcy^ But you luven ihe «iveiiiiiii nf her uvsf. And huahly dcal, Ukc an ,ill boirower. See also td. 720-717. 4. Frtf. Liberal, bouiitlful, Cf. 7; am/ C. iv. 5, 100; " His hcarl and haiid boih niwn and boili free," etc. 8. Lkt. Subsist "With all yitut usury you have iiol a I30 NOTES, ibr, trafficking only with yourself, you put a cheat upon yourself, and win nothing by such usury " (Dowden). 12. Audit. Printed in italics and with a capital in the quarto. See on I. 2 above. Acceptable (note the accent) is used by S. nowhere eise. 14. TIC executor, Malone reads "thy executor" (the conjecture of Capell). V.—" In Sonn. 5 and 6, youth and age are compared to the seasons of the year ; in 7, they are compared to morning and evening, the seasons of the day" (Dowden). 1. Hours, A dissyllable. Cf. 3 Hen. F/. p. 151. Gr. 480. 2. Gaze. Object gazed at ; as in Mach. v. 8. 24 : " Live to be the show and gaze o' the time." 4. And that unfair^ etc. "And render that which was once beautiful no longer fair " (Malone). Unfair is the only instance of the verb (or the Word) in S. Ctfairing'm 127. 6 below. 6. Confoiinds, Destroys. Cf. 60. 8, 64. 10, and 69. 7 below. 8. Bareness. Sewell (2d ed.) has " barrenness." Cf. 97. 4 below. 9. Distitlation. Perfumes distilled from flowers. Malone compares Sonn. 54 and M. N. D. i. i. 76 : " Earthlier happy is the rose distill'd," etc. II. Bereft. Taken away, lost. 14. Leese. " Lose " (Sewell's reading). Dowden notes that the word occurs in i Kings^ xviii. 5, in the ed. of 161 1 {lose in modern eds.). VL — "This sonnet carries on the thoughts of 4 and 5 — the distilling of perfumes from the former, and the interest paid on money from the latter " (Dowden). I. Ragged. Rugged, rough. See A. Y. L. p. 160. 5. Use. Interest. Cf. V. and A. 768 ; " But goid that 's put to use more gold begets ;" and see also 134. 10 below. 6. Happies. Makes happy ; the only instance of the verb in S. 13. Self-wiWd. Delius conjectures " self-kili'd." VII. — "After imagery drawn from summer and winter, S. finds new imagery in morning and evening" (Dowden). 7. Yet mortal looks adore^ etc. Malone quotes R. and J, i. i. 125 : " Madam, an hour before the worshippM sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east." 10. Recleth. Dowden quotes R. and J. ii. 3. 3 : ^' And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path." 1 1. Fore. So in the quarto ; " 'fore " in the modern eds. Cf Hen. V. p. 155. ConverUd=XMXii^^ away ; as in 1 1. 4 below. On the passage, Dowden compares T.ofA. i. 2. 150: " Men shut their doors against a setting sun." 13. Thyselfy etc. " Passing l^eyond your zenith " (Dowden). VIII. — I. Music to hear. Thou, to hear whom is music. Malone S/IAA'ESPEAXE-S SONMKTS. Ihought 5. nü-^'nt. have written "Music to ear" = "Tliou whase everj^iV 14. Will prtHii noae. Perhaps, as Donden suggcsts, ap alluston In [he ptoverbial eipreasioii thac "one is no number." CiL 13Ö. S : "Amoiig 3. nuniber one is teckon'd none." See also R. and J. p. 14Ö, notc an 3z, 'l'hE lueaiiing seemü tobe ttiat "since many makc but one, uiie will prove alsu leas (lian iiself, that is, will prove none." IX. — "The thought of married happiness in S — husband, cbild, and mother united in joy — suggesla its oppmite, the grief of a weeping wid- (ivv. 'Thou Single wilt prove none' ol S. 14 is cariied on in 'coiisum'at thyself in Single life' of 9. 2" (Dowden). 4. MakiUss. Without a iiiakt, or male. For miUu, cT. Spcnser. F. Q. iii. II. 2: "ThaC was as Crew in love as Turlle to her make ;" J/i. iv. 2, 30: " And each not farre behinde bim had his make," etc. In Ben Jun- son's vVnc /»«, the Host fonos a hieroglyphic Ca exptess the provet lfc | " A heavy purse makes a light heart," which he inteipreis thus : ^fl ■'The» 't is ttprtal I finl. br a pune oF gold, V A htJ'fSC'i %ht «u"k™ xl ligZ luaH." l 9. Unthrifi. Protligal ; as in 13. 1^ below. In Riih. II. ü. 3. 12a, the only olher instance of ihe naun in S., it is =good-for-nüthing. 10. //». Its; referring toniAn/. 12. The nur. The one having the use of ii, the possessor. Sewell reads "ihe us'rcr." X. — "The ■ miirthErous sharae' of 9. 14 reappeats in ihe ' For shame !' and ' murtheioiis hate ' of lo. In 9 Shaküpere denies ihat hi>< friend loves atly one ; he carriea on Ihe ihought in the opening of lo, aiid ihis leads up 10 his fricnd's love of Shakspere, which is first menlioned in this aun- nel" (Dowden). ^. Ruiiialc, etc. C£ Ä. o/Z. 944 ; " To ruinate proud buildings," eic The ineaniiia ia, "aeekiiig to bring Lo min that house (thal is, faoiily} which it ought 10 be jiour chiefcare lo repaii." Dowden addsi "thcse lines confirm Ihe coiijeeliirc ihat the falher of Shakspere's friend was dead." Cf. I j. g-14 bclow. Kor the figure, et also 3 Hin. VI. v. I. »3 and 7:C.ö/K.v.4.9. 9. Thy ihmisht. Thy purpose of not marrying. Xr. — "The firsl fii-e lines enlarge on ihe tlionght (10. 14) of beautv llviiig 'in thine;' showing how Ihe beauiyof a chlldmaybecalled thint" (Duwdenj. I. Dtpiiilijf. Ff am may bc midersiood, the preposition (Gr. 394) be- ing oflen umiiied in relative seniences when ii has been previüusly ex- pre^ed; or (he verb may bc irnnsitive, as in 2 Neu. /!■'. iv. 5. 91: "De- pari Ihe Chamber." eic. 4. Cmrotrlf/. |(osl lurn aivay. Cf. 7. II abovc and 14, 12 Iwk.w. Note Ihe rliynic wlih Jfpiirftit, and see also 14. t2, 17. 2. 49. 10, and 72. 6 132 NOTES, 7. The times. " The generations of men " (Dowden). 9. Für Store. " To be preserved for use " (Malone). Schmidt makes j/id Sf r ed.p. 161. Cf.aiüo 75. 1 XXVIII.— "A conlimiation o( Sonn, ij" (Dowdeii). 5, £iliir's. The qiurto has " ethers," Ibe ed. of 1640 " others." 9. Tii filtaie 4im, etc. Most eda. put a comma after Arm. On Ihe I whole, WC prefcr to omit it, as tbe Camb. ed. does, T 11. Sieart-comflexil/a'd. Firat hyphenedby Gildon. For n™i-/(=dark, black), cf. C. o/E. iii. 2. 104, K.John, iii. 1. 46, etc. 12. Tain. Peep, twinkle. Boswell quoles li.1.,Sad Shtphinl^n. I: "Which maids will iwire al.'lween iheir fingera thus." Nares adds B, and F., Woman iHiattii, iv. i : " I saw ihe wcnch tbat Iwic'd and twin- kled at thee ;" and Marsion, Anlenio and MtUida, act iv. ■, " I saw a thing slir under a hedge, and I peeped, and I spied a thing, and I peered and I tweeied undemeath." Gildan reads "tweei oul." Malone con- ioT gildsl Ihe quatto baa "guiTsI ;" correcled by Seivell. 14. Strmgth. The quarto haS "lenglh ;" cotrected by D. (Ihe canject- ure of Capell and Coli.). Dnwden, who retains the old icxl (thoitgb with aome besllation), explains it thua : " Each day'a joumey draws uui my sorrawa to a greater length ; bul ihis proceas of drawing-out does not weaken my sorrows, for my night-lhoiichls ciime ■□ make my sor- rows aa alrong as before, nay stronger." Lapell sn^gesicd tii Maloae " dmw my sorrows stninger . . . length secm lunger." XXIX.— "These are ihe nighl-ihoiißhts referred to in llie lasi line of aS ; hencc a special appropi iateiiess ni Ibe Image of Ihe lark riaing al ik Ol day" (Uowdeii). " 140 NO TES. 8. miA viAnt I most tiijoy teiileiiled Itail. •' The precediiig iine maltesj il nol iiiiprubable Ihat S, is bcre speakiiig of hU own poems" (Dowden)^ 13. Siiigs hymiis nl htavoi's galt. Maloiie quoles Cymi. ü. 3. 21'^ " Hatk, hark ! Ihe lark at heaven'a gaie sings ;" aiid Reed adds Lyljrf Campasfe, v. 1 (teferring lo Ihe larit) : claps lier «.ingü. RliU ; icmembcred S, wheii lie vt e [P. L. ^ XXX. — " Sonnet 29 was occupied with thoughls oi prisml wanls 31)4,4 troublea 1 30 teils ai thougbls of paat griers and loases" (üuwden). ■ I. Sessmis of sweet silc'it IhBught. Malone quotcs Orf. üj. 3. 138: 6. DaleUss. Endless ; the only sense in S. Cf. 153. 6 bela« ; seealso*/.-*. //.L3. isi and .ff. -(«rfJT v. 3. 115. 8, äfaan Iht rxpeiia. Lamenc the lass. Dowden ihinks it means " my account of moans for," beins; expialned by what follows (" teil o'i etc.) ; but we cannot agrce with bim. For exfciiie, cf. 94. 6 and 129, fi belc t agrce \ Ttll. CounC ; as in 13S. i beloH cf. r,-jw/. p. 123. XXXI. — " Coniinues the subject of 30 — Shaksjjere's friend o sates all losses in Ihe past" (Dowden). 5. Obi/quiBos. Funereal. See /Ainr. p. iSo. 6. Deiin The meagre cloddy eaith 10 gliTleriiig güid." Hem " 6. . Bacon. Syhia Syltia mnve the clouds above (which we call ihe n pell compares 1 Htn. IV. \. a. aai fol. 7. Fiirlern. Accented on ihe firsi syllablc becauae folloned by a noun so accented. Cf. T, G. of V. i. 3. 114: " Poor foriom Froleua. paaüion- ate Proteus." For Ihe other aecclil, See /'. of L. 1500 and L. L. L. v. a. 303. äee also on 107. 4 bclow. iz. Tie itgieii daud. S. uscG rtgiait several limea aa =ai[. Cf. IFtini, u.Z. 509: „^j^ dreadful ihundc. Dolh «nd Ihe region ;" and again in 607: "thc region kitea." See oared. p. an. 14. StMn. Grow dim, aa M tt.,i>ud or suiled. Cf. L. L. L. 11.1.48! "If vtilue'sgloss will stain with any aoil," etc. Cf. the Iransilive uae in below. See also the noun in V. and A.g: •' Swin lo all nympha " is, by eclipsing tbetn), etc. XXXIV.— " Garnes on (he idea and metaphor of 33 " (Dowden). 13. CrBsi. The quarto has "loase;" corrected by Malotie (the cotl' jeciureofCapell). cr.43. 12 and 133-8- XXXV. — "The 'tears' of 34 suggest the opening. Moved lo pityi S. will find guilt in himself rather ihan in bis friend " < Üuwden). 4. Canier. Canker-wocm ; as in 70. 7, 95. 2, aiid 99. la belotv. See aläo jV.iV.Ö.p. 150. 5. Afaitfiiu/lj. C(.Jf.B/L.&Oi: "all the faults which in Ihy reign are mader IV. 7:i!i.2.2i8: " All faulis I make," etc. A'id ivm I, etc. : "And even I am faulty in this, Ihat I lind precedenls Tor your oiiadeed by comparisons with roses, founlains, sun, and niuuii " (Dowden). & Aulboritiiig. Accenied on the second syllable, as elsewhere ir Sn Atticb. p. 2lE. Fol lom/iitre, see on 21. 5 above. The mcaning is; I "giving a prccedenl for Ihy fault by compaiing it ~''" - - -" -"-■ gtave). 7. Amitt. For the noun, et Ul. 3 below and ffam. ror temiplinr, lahing, Capell would read "cortupl in salviiig." 1 8. TSr . . - WJ'- Tlie quarlo teads "Iheit . . . their;" coirecled by I Malone (the conj'ecture of CapeH). .Steevcna explaina tlie line thus; I "MakiDg the excuae nioie than proporlioncd to ihe oHence." 9. SruJi. KeasDii. Malone conjeclutcd " incense " for in s. s. 142 NOTES. den says : " If we receive the present text, * thy adverse party * must mean Shakspere. But may we read: ' For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, [that is, judgment, Thy adverse party, as thy advocate.* reason] Sense — against which he has offended — brought in as bis advocate?" 14. Szveet thief, Cf. 40. 9: "gentle thief." For sonrly Gildon has "sorely." XXXVI. — " According to the announcement made in 35, S. proceeds to make himself out the guilty party" (Dowden). I. We iwo must be tivain. Malone compares T, and C, iii. i. iio: *• She '11 none of him ; they two are twain." 4. Borne, The Var. of 1821 misprints "born." 5. Respect Regard, affection. Dowden quotes Cor, iii. 3. 112 : " I do love My country's good with a respect more tender, More holy and profound than my own life." Palgrave explains one respect as ="one thing we look to." 6. A separable spite, " A cruel fate that spitefully separates us from each other " (Malone). Separable is used by S. only here. For the active use of adjectives in -ble^ see Gr. 3. Cf. Rieh. II. p. 185 (on Deceivable\ Lear, p. 193 (on Comfortabie)i etc. 9. Evermore, Walker conjectures " ever more." IG. My beivailed gitilt. Explained by Spalding and others as "the blots that remain with S. on account of his profession " as an actor ; but Dowden thinks the meaning may be : "I may not claira you as a friend, lest my relation lo the dark woman — now a matter of grief — should con- vict you of faithlessness in friendship." The Interpretation of many expressions in the Sonnets must depend upon the theory we adopt con- cerning their autobiographical or non - autobiographical character, and their relations to one another. 12. That honottr, The honour you give me. 13, 14. These lines are repeatea at the eiid of Sonn. 96. XXXVII.— " Continues the thought of 36. 13, 14" (Dowden). 3. So /, made lame. Cf. 89. 3 below : '* Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt." Capell and others have inferred that S. was literally lame. Malone remarks : " In the 89th Sonnet the poet speaks of his friend's imputing to him a fault of which he was not guilty, and yet, he says, he would acknowledge it : so (he adds) were he to be described as lame, however untruly, yet rather than his friend should appear in the wrong, he would immediately halt. If S. was in truth lame, he had it not in bis power to halt occashually for this or any other purpose. The defect must have been fixed and permanent. Tne context in the verse before US in like manner refutes this notion. If the words are to be understood literally, we must then suppose that our admired poet was also poor and despised^ for neither of which suppositions is there the smallest ground." Dowden says : " S. uses to lame in the sense of disable ; here the worlh and truth of his friend are set over against the lameness of S. ; the lame* SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS. 143 ness then is metaphorical — a disability to join in the joyous movement of life, as his friend does." Dearest, Most inteiise. Cf. Ham.\, 2. 182: "my dearest foe ;" and See note in our ed. p. 185. 7. Entitled in thy parts, Finding their title or claim to the throne in thy qualities. Cf. R. of L, 57 : '*But beauty, in that white intituled, From Venus' doves doth challengc that fair field;" and see note in our ed. p. 183. Malone explains entitled 2iS "ennobled." The quarto has ** their parts," which Schmidt would retain, explaining the passage thus : " or more excellencies, having a just claim to the first place as their due." XXXVIII. — " The same thought as that of the two preceding sonnets: S. will look on, delight in his friend, and sing his praise. In 37. 14 S. is *ten times happy* in his friend's happiness and glory; thus he re- ceives ten times the inspiration of other poets from his friendi who is •the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth' than the old nine Muses" (Dowden). 8. luvention, Imagination, or the poetic faculty. Cf. 76. 6, 103. 7, and 105. II below. 13. CuHous, Fastidious, critical. Cf. A. W. i. 2. 20 : " Frank Nature, rather curious than in haste, Hath well compos'd thee." XXXIX. — "In 38 S. spoke of his friend's worth as ten times that of the nine Muses, but in 37 he had spoken of his friend as the better part of himself. He now asks how he can with modesty sing the worth of his own better part. Thereupon he returns to the thought of 36, * we two must be twain ;* and now, not only are the two lives to be divided, but * our dear love ' — undivided in 36^must * lose name of Single one ' " (Dowden). 12. Which time and thoughts^ etc. Which doth so sweetly beguile tinie and thoughts. Malone takes thonghts to be =melancholy (cf. J, C, p. 146). See on 44. 9 below. The quarto has "dost " for doth; correct- ed by Malone. 13, 14. " Absence teaches how to make of the absent beloved two per- sons: one, absent in reality; the other, present to imagination" (Dow- den). XL. — " In 39 S. desires that his love and his friend's may be separat- ed, in order that he may give his friend what otherwise he must give also to himself. Now, separated, he gives his beloved all his loves, yet knows that, before the gift, all his was his friend's by right. *Our love losing name of Single one ' (39. 6) suggests the manit'old loves, mine and thine " (Dowden). 5, 6. Then if for love of me you receive her whom I love, I can not blame you for using her. for in 6 =because; as in 54. 9 and 106. 11 below. Gr. 151. 144 NO TES, 7. 8. " Yet you are to blame if you deceive yourself by an unlawful Union while you refuse loyal wedlock " (Dowden). The quarto has " this seife " for thyself; corrected by Gildon. 10. All my poverty, The poor little that I have. Cf. 103. i below. For thee^ see Gr. 220. XLI. — "The thought of 40. 13, *Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows/ is carried out in this sonnet" (Dowden). I. Pretty, Bell and Palgrave read ** petty." Cf. M. tf K ii. 6. 37 : " But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit.'* 3. Befits. See Gr. 333. 5, 6. Gentle thou art, etc. Steevens quotes i Ifefi VI, v. 3. 77 : " She*s beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd ; She is a woman, therefore to be won." 8. Säe have, The quarto reads " he have ;" corrected by Malone (the conjecture of Tyrwhitt). Dowden thinks that the old text may be right. 9. Ay nie 1 H. and some others read ** Ah me !" which is not found in S. See M. N. D, p. 128. My seilt, Malone reads " thou mightst, my sweet, forbear ;" but, as Boaden notes, the old reading is confirined and explained by Olh, ii. i. 304: " I do suspect the lusty Moor Hath leap'd into my seat." Dr. Ingleby adds, as a parallel, R. of L. 412, 413. XLII. — "In 41. 13, 14 S. declares that he loses both friend and mis- tress ; he now goes on to say that the loss of his friend is the greater of the two " (Dowden). 9. My lovers gain. That is, my mistress's gain. 1 1. Both twain, Dowden compares Z. L. L. v. 2. 459 : ** I remit both twain." XLIII. — Dowden asks ; "Does this begin a new group of sonnets?" 1. Witik. Shut my eyes. Cf. V. and A. p. 172. 2. Unrespected. Unnoticed, unregarded ; as in 54 10 below, the only other instance of the word in S. 5. Whose shadow^ etc. " Whose image makes bright the shades of night" (Dowden). II. Thy, The quarto again misprints "their;" corrected by Malone (the conjecture of Capell). 13. All days are nights to see, etc. " All days are gloomy to behold," etc. (Steevens). Malone wished to read ** nights to me ;" and Lettsom conjectured ; "All days are nights to me tili thee I see, And nights bright days when dreams do show me thee." Thee me=ihtQ to me. SffAKESPEAReS SO/VNET^. MS XLIV. — " In 43 he obtains sight of his friend in dreams ; 44 expresses the longing of the waking hours to come into his friend's presence by Bome preternatural means'* (Dowden). ^ Front, Gildon has "To." W4^;v=to where. 6. Farthest earth remov'ä, That is, earth farthest removed. See Gr. 419^1 ; and cf. 1 1 1. 2 below. 9. Thought kiils tne, Here, as Dowden notes, thought may mean " mel- ancholy contemplation%" See on 39. 12 above. 11. So much of eai-th aud water wrought, That is, so much of these baser elements being wrought into my nature. The allusion is to the old idea of the four elements entering into the composition of man. See y. C. p. 185, note on His life was gentle^ etc. Cf. 7*. N, ii. 3. 10 : " Does not our life consist of the four elements ?" and Hen, V, iii. 7. 22 : " He is pure air and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him," etc. See also A, aud C, v. 2. 292. Walker quotes Chapman, Iliiidf vii. : ** But ye are earth and water all, which— symboliz'd [that is, collected] in one — Have fram'd your faint unfiery spirits.'' ' XLV. — " Sonnet 44 teils of the duller elements of earth and water ; this sonnet, of the elements of air and fire" (Dowden). 4. Present-absent. The hyphen was inserted by Mal one. 8. Melancholy. To be pronounced fnilanck'ly (Walker). 9. Recw^d, Restored to health. Cf. V. and A. 465 : " A smile re- cures the wounding of a frown." See also Rieh, I/f, iii. 7. 130. 12. Thy, Again "their" in the quarto; corrected by Malone. XLVI. — ** As 44 and 45 are a pair of companion sonnets, so are 46 and 47. The theme of the first pair is the Opposition of the four ele- ments in the person of the poet ; the theme of the second is the Opposi- tion of the heart and the eye, that is, of love and the senses " (Dowden). 3. IViy. The quarto has " their," as in 8, 13, and 14 below ; corrected by Malone. 9. ^Cide, The quarto has "side ;" corrected by Sewell (2d ed.). IG. Quest. Inquest, or jury ; as in Rieh, III, i. 4. 189 : *'What lawful quest have given their verdict up Unto the frowning judger" 12. Moiety, Share, portion ; not necessarily an exact half. Cf. Ham, p. 174. XLVII. — "Companion sonnet to the last" (Dowden). I. Took. Capell conjectures "strook." 3. FamisWd for a look, Cf. 75. 10 below. Malone quotes C. of E, ii. 1. 88 : " Whilst I at home starve for a merry look." 9. Thy pieture or, Lintott has ** the picture or," and Gildon " the pict- ure of." 10. Art, The quarto has ** are ;" corrected by Malone. II. AW. The quarto has "nor *" corrected in the ed. of 1640. K 146 NOTES, With Sofin. 46, 47, Dowden compares Sonn. 19, 20 of Watson's Tears of Fände, 1593 (ed. Arber, p. 188) : " My hart impos'd this penance on mine eies, (Eies the first causers of my harts lainenting): That they should weepe tili loue and fancie dies, Fond loue the last cause of my harts repenting. Mine eies vpon my hart inflict this paine (Bold hart that dard to harbour thoughtä of loue) That it should loue and purchase feil disdaiue, A grieuous penance which my heart doth proue, Mine eies did weep as hart had them imposed, My hart did pine as eies had it constrained," etc. Sonnet 20 continues the same : "My hart accus'd mine eies and was ofTended, * * * * « Hart Said that loue did enter at the eies. And from the eies descended to the hart; Eies Said that in the hart did sparkes arise," etc. Cf. also Diana (ed. 1534), Sixth Decade, Sonnet 7 (Arber's EngUsh Gar- ner, vol. ii. p. 254) ; and Drayton, Idea, 33. XLVIII. — *' Line 6 of 46, in which S. speaks of keeping his friend in the closet of his breast, suggests 48 (see lines 9-12). I have said he is safe in my breast ; yet, ah ! I feel he is not" (Dowden). II. Gentle closure of my breast, Cf. V. and A. 782 : "Into the qniet closure of my breast." 14. Dowden asks : " Does not this refer to the woman who has sworn love (152. 2), and whose truth to S. (spoken of in 41. 13) now proves thiev- ish V Capell compares V. and A. 724 : " Rieh preys make true men thieves." For the antithesis oi true men and thieves, see Cymb. p. 182. XLIX. — "Continues the sad strain with which 48 closes. Notice the construction of the sonnet, each of the quatrains beginning with the same words, 'Against that time ;' so also 64, three quatrains beginning with the words * When 1 have seen.' So Daniel's sonnet beginning 'If this be love,' repeated in the first line of each quatrain " (Dowden). 3. Whenas. When. Cf C. ^is. p. 142. 4. Advis'd respects, Deliberate considerations ; as in K. yohn, iv. 2. 214 : " More upon humour than advis'd respects." For advis'd, see M, of y, p. 130, or liich. IL p. 165. 7. Converted, Changed. Steevens compares y. C. iv. 2. 20: "When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enfurced ceremony." 8. Kcasous, That is, for the change it has undergone. IG. Desert. Rhyming with/^r/, and spelled "desart" in the quarta See on 14. 12 and 17. 2 above. Cf. 72. 6 below. L. — "This sonnet and the next are a pair, as 44, 45 are, and 46, 47 The/iwr//i. t. ' corrcctcd by Malonul I ; "Mars his idiat," et '13. 717/ thtpidgmmt. etc. *' Till the decree of Ihe judgment day that you arise from the dead " (Dowden). H. Iias ihis stratige note 1 " Arist IS herc used transitively, and ts pul in tlie plural for llie rhyme, though iU subject is in che Singular-. 'Till the judgment-day thal raises youi- aelf from ihe dead,' is the meaning." LVf. — " This, like the soiinets immediately preceding, is nrilten in abscnce. The Imif S. addtesses (' Swecl love, renew thy force') is ihe love in his own breast. Is ihe sight uf his feiend, of which he speaks, only ihe imaginative seeing of love ; such fancied sighl as Iwo belrotbed pcrsons may have although severed by ihe ocean ?" jDawdeii.) 6. Wink. Close in sieep, as after a füll meal. See on 43. 1 above. 8. DnUuesi, "Taken In councclion wiih wink, mcaning sIeep, duÜ- Hat seems 10 mein drowsinui, as when Prospero says of Miranda'a sliunber ( Timf. i. z. 1S5I "T is a gond dullness ' ■' (Dowden). 13. Eist, The quarlo has "As ;" eorrecled by Palgrave. LVIL — " The absence spoken of in ihis sonnel seenis lo bc voluntarj alisence on the pnil of Shaksperc's fricnd" {Dowden). 5. Wvrld-tfUhimt-tHJ bour. "The Icdious hour. lliat scem.1 as If it would iievei end. So L. L. i.V. s. 799; "a wotld-wiihoul-end bar- Sam'"|Malone). ii- Whtre ynii d«, etc. How happy ynu make ihose whete yoii nre. Ij, iV.li. The quario h»s " Will " (uut in ii.ljcs). " If a play o ISO NOTES. words is intended, it must be * Love in your Will (your Will Shakspere) can think no evil of you, do what you please ;' and also * Love can dis- Cover no evil in your will ' " (Dowden). LVIII. — " A close continuation of 57; growing distrust in his friend, with a determinatioM to resist such a feeling. Hence the attempt to dis- qualify himself for judging his friend's conduct, by taking the place of a vassal, a servant, a slave, in relation to a sovereign " (Dowden). 3. To crave. For the to^ see Gr. 350. 6. The imprison'd absence of your liberty. " The Separation from you, which is proper to your State of freedom, but which to me is imprison- ment. Or the want of such liberty as you possess, which I, a prisoner, suffer" (Dowden). 7. Tarne to suffer ance. " Bearing tamely even cruel distress ; or, tarne even to the point of entire Submission " (Dowden). Malone compares Lear^ iv. 6. 225: "made tarne to fortune's blows." Bide each checke endure each rebuke or rebuff. IG. Yourtime To what^ etc. Malone reads "your time : Do what," etc. LIX. — "Is this connected with the preceding sonnet? or a new Start- ing-point ? Immortality conferred by v6rse (54, 55) is again taken up in 60, connected with 59, and jealousy (57) in 61 " (Dowden). 5. Record. Accented by S. on either syllable, as suits the measure. Cf. 122. 8 below. 6. Courses. Yearly courses, not daily. Cf. Heu. VIII, ii. 3. 6 : " After So many courses of the sun enthron'd:" T, and C. iv. I. 27 : " A thousand complete courses of the sun," etc. 7. Antique, For the accent, see on 19. 10 above. 8. Since mind^ etc. " Since thought was first expressed in writing" (Schmidt). 11. Or whether. The quarto has "or where," and some modern eds. print " whe'r " or " wh§r." See Gr. 466. 12. Or whether revolution, etc. Whether the revolution of time brings about the same things. LX. — "The thought of revolution, the revolving ages (59. I2),setsthe poet thinking of changes wrought by time " (Dowden). I. Like as, Cf. 118. i below. See also T, and C. i. 2. 7, Harn. i. 2. 217, etc. 5. Nativity^ etc. The child once brought into this world of light. " As the main of waters would signify the great body of waters, so the main of light signifies the mass or flood of light into which a new-born child is launched" (K.). Dowden remarks that the image in main of light is suggested by line i, where our minutes are compared to waves. 7. Crooked. Malignant. Cf. T. G. of V. iv. i. 22 : " If crooked fortune had not thwarted me," etc. For the allusion to the supposed evil influ- ence of eclipses, cf. 107. 5 below. Cf. also Mach. iv. i. 28, Harn. i. i. I2Q Lear^ i. 2. 112, Oth, v. 2. 99, etc. SHAKESPEAR&S SONNE TS. 151 8. Confound, Destroy. See on 5. 6 above. 9. Flourish, " External decoration " (Malone). Cf. Z. Z. Z. ii. 1. 14 : '^* the painted flourish of your praise," etc. 10. Delves the paralUls. Makes furrows. For the figure, cf. 2. 2 above ; ^nd für a different one, see 19. 9. 13. Times in hope. Future times. LXI. — " The jealous feeling of 57 reappears in this sonnet " (Dowden), 8. Tenour. The quarto has " tenure ;" corrected by Malone. 1 1. Defeat. Destroy. Cf. Oth. iv. 2. 160 : " His unkindness may defeat iiiy life ;" and see our ed. p. 201. LXII. — " Perhaps the thought of jealousy in 61 suggests this. * How self-loving to suppose my friend could be jealous of such an one as I — beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity ! My apology for supposing that others could make love to me is that my friend's beauty is mine by right of friendship ' " (Dowden). 5. Gracious. Füll of grace, beautiful. Cf. K, John^ iii. 4. 81 : "a gra- cious creature ;" T N. i. 5. 281 : " A gracious person," etc. 7. And for tnyself etc. Walker conjectures "so define," and Lettsom "so myself." Dowden asks : ** Doesyi/r tnyself mtzxi *for my own sat- isfaction '.'*" Perhaps it merely adds emphasis to the Statement. 8. As /, etc. In such a way that I, etc. IG. Bated. The quarto has "beated," which was probably an error of the ear for ^j/^t/ (=beaten down, weakened ; as in M. of V, iii. 3. 32 : "These griefs and losses have so bated me," etc.), öeat being then pro- noMViCtaiate. See W. T. p. 170, note on Bnits ; and cf. T. G.ofV. p. 125, note on 68. Malone conjectured " 'bated," but thought beated might be right, as casted occurs in Heu. V. (iv. i. 23). He says that thrusted is found in Macb.^ but no such form is used by S. He fias splitted in C. of E. i. I. 104, V. 1. 308, A. and C. v. i. 24, etc., catched in L, A. Z. v. 2. 69, becomed in K, and J. iv. 2. 26, Cymb, v. 5. 406, etc. Cf. Gr. 344. Stee- vens would read " blasted," and Coli. " beaten," which W. adopts. For chopfd (the quarto chopt) D. and others read "chapp'd." C£ A. Y. Z. p. 158. 13. ^T is thee^ myself That is, thee, who art my other seif. LXni. — "Obviously in close continuation of 62" (Dowden). 5. Steepy night. Malone was at first inclined to read " sleepy night," but afterwards decided that steepy is explained by 7. 5, 6 above. Dow- den takes the same view. " Youth and age are on the steep ascent and che steep decline of heaven." St. says : " Chaucer \C. T. 201, 755] has •cyen stepe,' which his editors Interpret *eyes deep.' We believe in both cases the word is a synonym for black or darkJ*^ H. reads " sleepy.** 9. For such a time. That is, in anticipation of it. Fortify = {ox\\{y my- self, take defensive mcasures. Cf. 2 Hen. IV\ i. 3. 56: " We fortify m paper and in ügures." la Confounding. See on 60. 8 above. 152 NOTES. LXIV. — " In 63. 12 the thought of the loss of his * lover's life * occurs ; this sonnet (see line 12) carries out the train of reflection there started. *Time's feil band' repeats *Time's injurious band* of 63. 2" (Dowden). Palgrave remarks that the tbree sonnets 64-66 " form one poem of mar- vellous power, insigbt, and beauty." 2. Rieh proud. Hypbened by Malone, like down-ras*d below. 5. When I have seen the hungry ocean^ etc. Some critics bave ex- pressed surprise tbat S. sbould know anytbing of tbese gradual encroacb- ments of the sea on the land ; but they had become familiär on the east coast of England before his day. For one striking instance of the kind, see Rieh. IL p. 178, note on Ravenspurg. Capell quotes 2 Heu. IV. iii. i. 45 : "O God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, meh itself Into the sea ! and, other times, to see The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips," etc 13. This thoughty etc. This thought, which cannot choose but weep . . . is as a death. 14. To have. At having. See Gr. 356. LXV. — '* In close connection with 64. The first line enumerates the conquests of time recorded in 64. 1-8" (Dowden). 3. This rage. Malone conjectured ** his rage." 4. Action. Perhaps, as Dowden suggests, used in a legal sense, sug- gested by hold a plea. 6. Wrackful. The quarto has " wrackfull ;" the only instance of the Word in S. Cf wrack-threatening in R. of L. 590. Wrack is the only spelling in the early eds. See Rieh, II. p. 177 ; and note the rhyme in 126. 5 below. 10. ehest. Theo, conjectured " quest ;" but, as Malone shows, the fig- ure is a favourite one with S. Cf. 48. 9 above ; and see also IC. John^ v. I. 40, Rieh. IL i. i. 180, etc. Tivie's ehest=\!ti^ oblivion to which he con- signs our precious things. 12. Of beauty. The quarto has "or" for of and Gildon reads "on." LXVI. — " From the thought of his friend's death Shakspere turns to think of his own, and of the ills of life from which death would deliver him " (Dowden). 1. All these. The evils enumerated below. 2. Born. St. conjectures " lorn," and " empty " for needy. 8. Disabled. A quadrisyllable, which W. prints " disableed." See Gr. 477- 9. Art made tongite-tied^ etc. "/^r/ is commonly used by S. for letters, learning, science. Can this line refer to the censorship of the stage ?" (Dowden.) 11. Simplieity, Folly; as in Z. Z. Z. iv. 2. 23, iv. 3. 54, v. 2, 52, 78, etc. SHAKSSPEARES SOJVJVETS. LXVII.— 'Tncloaeconnectionwilh 66. Why ahould mv friend linue to live in tbU cvil world?" (Dowden.) 4. Zai-/. Embellish. bec Afiiii. |>. 200. 6. Dtdti sitiug. "Why should paimiiig slcal the liftlesi appearatu . _, beauly from bis livine bue V (Duwden.) Capell and Fanner conjecluri "seembg." 9, Bankrupt. Spelled "bancktout " In the quarto. See V. andA. |ipi..l 175. 184- iz. Pioudofmany, etc. •' Naiure, while she boaäiaof many beautifut peracHis, teatly has no treasure uf beauly except liis " (Dowdeo). 13. Sliiies. See an 1 1. 9 above. I. Map ofi/ays oiitaiirrn. Malane compares K.cf L. 1350: " ihis pnt- tern oC the worn^oul age." For H*a;t = iiiclure, image, cf. f<. eif L.ipi-. " the map of dcalh ;" Rük. //. v. 1. 12 : " Thou map uf honour," elc. 3. Fair. See on 16. II above. 5, 6. För Shakespeare's antipathy to false hair, aee M. af V. p. 149. et notE on la I abnve. la Wilhmil all. That is, wilhout any. Dowilen compaies 74. low. For ilsflf tAsXQWi conjectures "hiniself." LX!X. — " From tlie thought of his friend's eiclernal beauly S. lurns U rhink of tbe beauty uf bis mind, and the populär lepoit againsl it" I (Dowden). \ 3. Due. Tbe quarto has " end ;" coriected bv Malone Continues the subject of Ihe last sonnet, and defend* \m\ fi'icnd from the suspidoii and slaltder oflhe (ime " (Dowden), I. Art. The quarlo has "are;" cnrrtned in ihe ed. of 1640. 3. Siaptct. SnapicJon. For the noun, »hieb S. iises some Aottn times, t:tJlük.lI/.p. 188. 6. Tiy. AKain Ihe quartoh.ls" Their." Biing 7aBu'd af liuic. "Heilig sriliciicd or templrd 1i¥ the prrsent limei" (Dowden). Sleevciis quoles B. J,, Evt>]i Man Oiil ■|. ety" [disarow thy personall ly) ; A. rtiiil C. n. b. 130; "the t»nd "' scems lo (ie iheir friendship togelher will be the vcry strangler of 1 amitv." Malone calla itraitgie " uncouth j" biit, as K. aska, " why 19 woi([calledu»iv«Aiwhich expressesa meaning niore clenrly and forcifa) tlian any olher word } The miserable aftectaiion of the la. 117, note on 103. 13. »SV? strongiy, etc. "So kept and harbour'd in my thoughts*' (Schmidt). 14. Are dead, The quarto has "y' are ;*' corrected by Malone (1780). D. and Dowden read "they 're." CXIII. — "In connection with 112; the writer's mind and senses are filled with his friend; in 112 he teils how his ear is stopped to all other voices but one beloved voice ; here he t«lls how his eye sees things only as related to his friend '^ (Dowden). ;68 NOTES, 3. Pari kis futiction, Divide its function. H. make8/rtr/="depart from, forsake ;" but partly confirms the other explanation. 6. Latch, Catch. Cf. Mach. iv. 3. 195 : " Where hearing should not latch them ;" and see our ed. p. 244. The quarto has '* lack ;" corrected by Malone. 10. Favonr, Countenance, aspect. Cf. 125. 5 below. See also Prov, xxxi. 30. 14. Makes mine eye untrue. The quarto reads " maketh mine untnie," which Malone explains thus : " The sincerity of my affection is the cause of my untruth, that is, my not seeing objects truly, such as they appear to the rest of mankind ;" and W. as follows : " maketh the semblance, the üctitious (and so the false or untrue) object which is constantly before me." On the whole, we prefer the reading in the text, which occurred independently to Capell and Malone. Coli, suggests ** maketh my eyne untrue," and Lettsom ** mak'th mine eye untrue." CXIV. — **Continues the subject treated in 113, and inquires why and how it is that his eye gives a false report of objects " (Dowden). 4. Alchemy, Printed '"''Alcumie^'' in the quarto. See on 20. 7 above. 5. IndigesL Chaotic, formless. Cf. 2 Heu, VI, v. i. 157: "foul indi- gested lump;" and 3 Hen, VI. v. 6. 51 : "an indigested and deformed lump." These are the only instances of the words m S. 6. Cherubins. Cf. Tetnp. i. 2. 152: "a cherubin;" and see our ed. p. 115. 9. ' T isflattery in my seetug. Dowden quotes T. N, i. 5. 238 : "I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind." 11. What with his gust is greeing, What suits its (the eye*s) taste. The quarto hsis gf-eeingy not " greeing," as commonly printed. See Wb. For gitst, cf. T. N". i. 3. 33 : " the gust he hath in quarrelling," etc. 13, 14. As Steevens remarks, the allusion is here to the tasters to princes, whose office it was to taste and declare the good quality of dish- es and liquors served up. Cf. K, John, v. 6. 28 : " who did taste to bim ?" and see Kick. II. p. 220, note on Taste ofitfirst. CXV. — " Shakspere now desires to show that love has grown through error and seeming estrangement. Before trial and error love was but a babe" (Dowden). II. Certain o* er incertainty^ cic Cf. 107. 7 above. CX VI. — " Admits his wanderings, but love is fixed above all the errors and trials of man and man's life" (Dowden). 2. Impediments. Alluding to the Marriage Service : " If any of you know cause or just impediment," etc. Love is not love^ etc. Steevens quotes Lear^ i. i. 241 : " Love 's not love When it is mingled with regnurds that Stands Aloof from the entire point?' SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, 169 5. An ever-fixed mark^ etc. Malone cites Cor. v. iii. 74 : " Like a great sea-mark Standing every flaw.^* 8. Whost wortk V unknown^ etc. Apparently, whose stellar influence is unknown, although his angular altitude has been determined '' (Pal- grave) ; an astrological allusion. Dowden remarks : ** The passage seems to mean, As the star, over and above what can be ascertained con- cerning it for our guidance at sea, has unknowable occult virtue and in- fluence, so love, beside its power of guiding us, has incalculable potencies. This Interpretation is confirmed by the next sonnet (117) in which the simile of sailing at sea is introduced; Shakspere there coufesses his wan- derings, and adds as his apology *I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of your love ' — constancy^ the guiding fixedness of love ; virtue^ the * unknown worth.' Walker proposed * whose north V unknown/ explaining * As, by follow- ing the guidance of the northern star, a ship may sail an immense way, yet never reach the true north ; so the limit of love is unknown. Or can any other good sense be made of "«^rM" ? Judicent rei astronomiccd f>erUi^ Dr. Ingleby ( The Soule Arayed, 1872, pp. 5, 6, note) after quoting m connection with this passage the lines in which Csesar speaks of him- self (y. C. iii. i) as *constant as the northern star,* writes : * Here human virtue is figured under the " true-fixM and resting quality " of the north- ern Star. Surely, then, the worth spoken of must be constancy or fixed- ness, The sailor must know that the star has this worth, or his latitude would not depend on its altitude. Just so without the knowledge of this worth in love, a man "hoists sail to all the winds," and is "frequent with unknown minds." ' Height, it should be observed, was used by Eliza- bethan writers in the sense of value, and the word may be used here in a double sense, altitude (of the star) and valne (of love) ; love whose worth is unknown, however it may be valued.'* 9. Time^ s fooL The sport or mockery of Time. Malone quotes i Hen, IV. V. 4. 81 : ** But thought 's the slave of life, and life time's fool." 11. His brief honrs, Referring to 7»«^. 12. llie edge of doom, Cf. A. IV. iii. 3. 5 : " We '11 strive to bear it for your worthy sake To the extreme edge of hazard." CXVII. — "Continues the confession of his wanderings from his friend, but asserts that it was only to try his friend's constancy in love'' (Dow- den). 5. Freqnent. Intimate. In the only other instance of the word in S. (IV. T. iv. 2. 36) it is ssaddicted. Unknoivn minds =pQrsons of little note, or obscure. 6. To time. To the world, or society. Cf. 70. 6 above. Dowden sug- gests that the meaning may be, "given away to temporary occasion what is your property and therefore an heirloom for eternity." St. proposes "them*' for time. II. Level. Aim ; a technical use of the word. Cf. R. and J. p. 19a See also the verb in 121. 9 below. lyo NOTES, CXVIII. — " Continues the subject ; adding that he had sought stränge loves only to quicken his appetite for the love that is true ** (Dowden). 1. Like as. See on 60. i above. 2. Eager, Tart, poignant (Fr. aigre)\ as in Harn, i. 5. 69: "eager droppings into milk." 4. Pnrge. Take a cathartic. Cf. i Heu, IV. v. 4. 168 : " I '11 purge, and leave sack." 5. Nier-cloylng. The quarto has " nere cloying," and the ed. of 1640 *' neare cloying ;" corrected by Malone (the conjecture of Theo.). 7. Meetness. Fitness, propriety ; used by S. only here. 12. Rank. " Sick (of hypertrophy)," as Schmidt defines it. Cf. 2 Hen^ IV, iv- i. 64 : " To diet rank minds sick of happiness." CXIX. — " In close connection with the preceding sonnet ; showing the gains of ill, that Strange loves have made the true love more streng and dear" (Dowden). 2. Limbecks. Alembics. The word occurs again in Mach, \. 7. 67. 3. Applying fears to hopes. ** Setting fears against hopes " (Palgrave). 4. Still losingy etc. " Either, losing in the very moment of victory, pr gaining victories (of other loves than those of his friend) which were in- deed but losses " (Dowden). 7. Fitted, The word must be from the nouny?/, and =started by the paroxysms or fits of his fever. Lettsom would read " flitted," which surely would be no improvement. 11. RitM d loveytXQ. " Note the introduction of the'metaphor of rebuilt love, reappearing in later sonnets" (Dowden). Cf. C, of E, iii. 2. 4, A, and C. iii. 2. 29, T, and C, iv. 2. 109, etc. 14. ///, The quarto has " ile ;" corrected by Malone. CXX. — " Continues the apology for wanderings in love ; not Shake- speare alone has so erred, but also his friend " (Dowden). 3. " I must needs be overwhelmed by the wrong I have done to you, knowing how I myself sufFered when you were the offender " (Dowden). 6. A hell oftime, Malone quotes Oth. iii. 3. 169 : *' But O, what damned minutes teils he o'er Who dotes yet doubts, suspects yet strongly loves;" and R.ofL. 1286: "And that deep torture may be call'd a hell, When more is feit than one hath power to teil.'* 9. Our, St. conjectures '' sour." Remember'd, Reminded ; as in Temp. i. 2. 243 : " Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd," etc. 12. Salve, Dowden compares 34. 7 above. CXXI. — "Though admitting his wanderings from his friend's love (1 18-120), S. refuses to admit the scandalous charges of unfriendly cen- sors. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, 171 (4 Dr. Burgecsdijk regards this sonnet as a defence of the stage against the Puritans " (Dowden). 2. IVhen not to bc^ etc. When one is unjustly reproached with being so (that is, vile). 3, 4. And the just pUasiire^ etc. ** And the legitimate pleasure lost, which is deemed vile, not by us who experience it, but by others who look on and condemn " (Dowden). 5. Adulterate. Lewd; as in Rieh, II L iv. 4. 79, and L, C. 175. It is = adulterous in R. 0/ L. 1645, Harn» \. 5. 42, etc. 6. Give salutation^ etc. Dowden quotes Hen, VIII. ii. 3. 103 : '^Would I had no being, If this Salute my blood a jot!" .S^r^jj/>/^j'=adornings. 5. Adtnire. Wonder at ; as in T. iV. iii. 4. 165 : " Wonder not, nor admire not," etc. 7. And rather make them, etc. " Them refers to ^what thou dost foist,' etc. ; we choose rather to think such things new, and specially created for our satisfaction, than, as they really are, old things of which we have already heard" (Dowden). II. Records, S. accents the noun on either syllable, as may suit the measure. Cf. 55. 8 above. CXXIV. — "Continues the thought of 123. 13, 14. The writer's love, being unconnected with motives of self-interest, is independent of Fort- une and Time " (Dowden). I. State, Rank, power. 4. Weeds, etc. " My love might be subject to time^s hate^ and so plucked up as a weed, or subject to time*s love^ and so gathered as a flower " (Dow- den). 5. Builded. The participle is oftener built ; as in 119. 11 and 123. 2 above. 7, 8. " When time puts us, who have been in favour, out of fashion " (Dowden). 9. Polky^ that heretic. " The prudence of self-interest, which is faith- less in love. Cf. /?. and y. i. 2. 95 (Romeo speaking of eyes unfaithful to the beloved) : * Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars * " (Dowden). II. Hiigely politic. '* Love itself is infinitely prudent, prudent for eter- nity " (Dowden). H. takes the phrase to be=" organized or knit together in a \vw%=its, cf. 9. IG, 14. 6, 74. 7, and 84. 6 above. 5. Wrack, For the rhyme, cf. V. and A. 558, R. of Z. 841, 965, and Macb, V. 5. 51. See also on 65. 6 above. 9. Minion. Darling, favourite. See Macb. p. 153. 12. Quietus, "This is the technical term for the acquittance which every sherifF receives on settling his accounts at the Exchequer. Com- pare Webster, Dnchess of Malfiy i. i : * And 'cause you shall not come to me in debt, Being now my Steward, here upon your lips I sign your Quietus est'''''' (Steevens). S. uses the word again in Hatn. iii. i. 75. To render thee. "To yield thee up, surrender thee. When Nature is called to a reckoning (by Time }) she obtains her acquittance upon surrendering thee, her chief treasure " (Dowden). CXXVII. — "The sonnets addressed to his lady begin here. Stee- vens called attention to the fact that ' almost all that is said here on th« subject of complexion is repeated in L. L. L. iv. 3. 250-258 : " O, who can give an oath ?" etc.' " Herr Krauss points out several resemblances between Sonn. 126-152 and the Fifth Song of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella (that beginning * While favour fed my hope, delight with hope was brought'), in which may l>e feit * the ground tone of the whole series ' of later sonnets " (Dowden). I. In the old age black was not countedfair. W. remarks : " This is an SHAKESPHARE'S SONNE TS. 175 allusion to the remarkable fact that during the chivalric ages brünettes were not acknowledged as beauties anywhere in Christendom. In all the old coftUSf/ablianXt and romances that I am acquainted with, the heroines are blondes. And more, the possession of dark eyes and hair, and the complexion that accompanies them, is referred to by the troubadours as a misfortune." 3. Snccessive. By order of succession ; as in 2 Hen, VI, iii. i. 49 : "As next the king he was successive heir." 7. Bmoer. Habitation. Malone reads " hour." 9. My tnistress* brows. The quarto has " eyes " for brows^ which is due to the Camb. editors. Walker conjectures " hairs." Cf. W, T, ii. i. 8: " Your brows are blacker ; yet black brows, tbey say, Become some women best," etc 10. Suited. Clad ; as in M, of V, i. 2. 79, A. W, i. i. 170, etc. For and they D. reads "as they." 12. Slaudering creation^ etc. " Dishonouring nature with a spurious reputation, a fame gained by dishonest means " (Dowden). 13. Becoming of, Gracing. For ^with verbals, see Gr. 178. CXXVIII.— I. My tnusic, Cf. 8. i above. 5. Eitvy. Accented on the second syllable ; as in T, of S. ii. i. 18: " Is it for him you do envy me so ?" Malone compares Marlowe, Edw, II, : " If for the dignities thou be envy'd ;" and Sir John Davies, Epi- grams : " Why doth not Ponticus their fame envy ?" Jacks, The keys of the virginal, or the piano of the time. For the instrument, see Two Noble Kinsmen^ p. 177. Steevens quotes Ram AU Uy, 161 1 : "Wbere be these rascals that skip up and down Like virginal jacks?" 11. Thy, The quarto has " their," as in 14 ; corrected by Gildon. CXXIX. — \, Expense. Expenditure. Cf. 94. 6 above. 2. Lust, The subject of the sentence. 9. Mad, The quarto has " Made ;" corrected by Gildon. II. Prov^df a very woe, The quarto reads " proud and very wo ;" cor- rected by Sewell and Malone. CXXX. — " She is not beautiful to others, but beautiful she is to me, ahhough I entertain no fond illusions, and see her as she is " (Dowden;. 4. ff hairs be wires, Cf. K. John^ iii. 4. 64 : **0, what love I note In the fair multitude of those her hairs ! Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen, Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends Do glue theniselves," etc. 5. Damusk'd, Variecated. Cf. A, Y, L, iii. 5. 123 : " Betwixt the con- stant red and mingled damask." 14. Atty she, Cf. Hen, V, ii. I. 83 : "the only she," etc For conipare^ See on 21. 5 above. 176 NOTES. CXXXI. — " Connected with 130 ; praise of his lady, black, but, to her lover, beautiful " (Dowden). 6. Groau. Cf. 133. i below. See also V. and A. 785 : " No, lady, no ; my heart longs not to groan," etc. 14. This slander, That her face has not the power to make love groan. CXXXII. — "Connected with 131 : there S. complains of the cruelty and tyranny of his lady ; here the same subject is continued and a plea made for her pity " (Dowden). 2. Knowing thy heart tormettts. The quarto has " torment " for tor- ments^ and Malone reads " Knowing thy heart, torment," etc. The text is that of the ed. of 1640. 4. Ruth, Pity. See Rieh, II. p. 199. 9. Mouruing, The quarto has " morning," and probably, as Dowden suggests, a play was intended on moruing sun and mourning face. 12. Snit thy pity like. That is, clothe it similarly, let it appear the same. CXXXIII. — "Here Shakspere's heart *groans'(see 131) for the suf- fering of his friend as well as his own " (Dowden). I. Beshrew. On this mild imprecation, see A'ich. II. p. 192. II. Keeps. That is, guards. CXXXIV. — " In close connection with 133 " (Dowden). 5. Wilt not. That is, wilt not restore him. 9. Statute. " Statute has here its legal signification, that of a security or Obligation for money" (Malone). la Use. Interest ; as in 6. 5 above. II. Cavie. That is, who became. For the ellipsis, see Gr. 244. CXXXV. — "Perhaps suggested by the second line of the last sonnet, * I myself am mortgag'd to thy wilP " (Dowden). I. Will. " In this sonnet, in the next, and in 143 the quarto marks by italics and capital Pf^the play on words, fF///= William [Shaksnere], ^7/= William, the Christian name of Shakspere's friend pMr. W. H.J, and ^/7/=desire, volition. Here '•Will in overplus' means Will Shak- spere, as the next line shows, * niore than enough am I.* The first ' Will ' means desire (but as we know that his lady had a husband, it is possible that he also niay have been a ' Will,* and that the first ' Will ' here may refer to him besides meaning * desire *) ; the second * Will ' is Shakspere's friend " (Dowden). Halliwell remarks that in the time of S. quibbles of this kind were common, and he cites as an example the riddle on the name William, quoted from the Book of Riddle s in our ed. oi M. W. p. 135. 5. Sf>aciotis. A trisyllable, XxV^ gracious below. Gr. 479. 9. The scüy etc. Cf. T. N. ii. 4. 103 : ** But mine is all as hungry as the sea. And can dieest as mucn;" SHAKESPEARE'S SONNE TS, 177 and Id. i. i. 11 : "O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thout That, notwithstanding tny capacity Receiveth as the sea," etc. 13. Let fio unkind^ nofair beseechers kill. A puzzling line, as it Stands. Schmidt is doubtful whether unkind is a Substantive, and, if so, whether it means " unnaturalness," or " aversion to the works of love." Palgrave paraphrases thus : " Let no unkindness, no fair-spoken rivals destroy me." Dowden says that if unkind is a Substantive it must mean " unkind one (that is, his lady)," as in Daniel's Delia^ 2d Sonnet : " And teil th' Un- kind how dearly 1 have lov*d her." He adds that possibly no fair may mean ** no fair one ;" but suggests that perhaps we should print the line thus : " Let no unkind * No ' fair beseechers kill ;" that is, "let no unkind refusal kill fair beseechers." This strikes us as a very happy Solution of the enigma, and we have been strongly tempted to adopt it in our text. CXXXVI.— "Continues the play on words of 135 " (Dowden). 6. Ay.fill. The quarto has "I nll ;" but ay was usually printed "L" Dowden suggests that possibly there may be a play on ay and /. 8. One is reckon^d none. See on 8. 14 above. 10. Storis. The quarto has " stores ;" the Camb. editors follow Ma- lone in reading " stores'." Schmidt says oiStoi'e : " used only in the sing. ; therefore in Sonn. 136. 10, store^s not stores'.''^ ** Lines 9, 10 mean * You need not count me when merely counting the mtmber ofthose who hold you dear, but when estimating the worth of your possessions, you must nave regard to me.' * To set störe by a thing or person * is a phrase con- nected with the meaning of* störe' in this passage" (Dowden). 12. Soniethiug sweet, Walker proposed and Dyce reads "something, sweet." 13, 14. " Love only my name (something less than loving myself), and then thou lovest me, for my name is Will, and I myself am all will, that is, all desire " (Dowden). CXXXVn. — "In 136 he has prayed his lady to receive him in the blindness of love ; he now shows how Love has dealt with his own eyes " (Dowden). 6. Anchor''d. Malone compares A. and C. i. 5. 33 : , "and great Pompcy Would stand and make bis eyes grow in my brow; Tliere would he anchor his aspect ;" and Steevens adds M.for M. ii. 4. 4 : " Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel/* 9. Sin>eriil plot. Hai li well says : " Fields that were enclosed were called severals in Opposition to commons, the former belonging to individuals, the üthers to the inhabitants generally. When commons were enclosed, portions allotted to owners of freeholds, copyholds, and cottages, were M 178 NOTES, fenced in, and termed severals^'' Cf. Z. Z. Z. ii. i. 233 : " My Hps are no common though several they be ;" and see our ed. p. 137. CXXXVIII.— "Connected with 137. The frauds practised by blind love, and the blinded lovers, Shakspere and his lady, who yet must strive to blind themselves " (Dowden). This sonnet appeared as the first poem of The Passionate Pilgrim (published in 1599, when S. was in his 35th year) iu the following form : " When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she tnight think me some untutor'd youth, Unskilful in the world's false forgeries. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although / know my years be past the best, / smiling credit her false-speaknig tongue, Out/acing faults in love with lovers ill rest. But wherefore says my love that she is young ? And wherefore sajr not I that I am old? O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue^ And age. in love, loves not to have years told, Therefoie / "11 He with lo-ue^ and love with me, Since that our faults in love thus smother'd be.*' II. Hahit. Bearing, deportment. CXXXIX. — "Probably connected with 138; goes on to speakofthe lady's untruthfulness ; he may try to believe her professions of truth, but do not ask him to justify the wrong she lays upon his heart" (Dowden). 3. Wotind me not with thine eye, Malone quotes R, and y, ii. 4. 14 : " stabbed with a white wench's black eye ;" and Steevens adds 3 Hen, VL V. 6. 26 : "Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words !" CXL. — "In connection with 139; his lady's *glancing aside' ofthat sonnet reappears here, *Bear thine eyes straight.' He complains of her excess of cruelty" (Dowden). 6. To teil me so. " To teil me thou f/ost love me " (Malone). 14. Bdtir thine eyes straight, etc. " That is, as it is expressed in 93. 4, * Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place ' " (Malone). CXLI. — " In connection with 140 ; the proud heart of line 14 reappears here in line 12. His foolish heart loves her, and her proud heart pun- ishes his folly by cruelty and tyranny. Compare with this sonnet Dray- ton, Idea, 29 " (Öowden). 8. Seiisual feast, Gratification of the senses. 9. Five wits. See Much Adoy p. 120. 1 1. Who leaves uns7üay*di etc. " My heart ceases to govern me, and so leaves me no better than the likeness of a man — a man without a heart — in Order that it may become slave to thy proud heart" (Dowden). 14. Pain» "In its old etymological sense o{ punishmenf' (Walker). CXLIL — " In connection with 141 ; the first line takes up the word * sin ' SHAKESPEARES SONNETS, 179 örom the last line of that sonnet. * Those whom thine eyes woo ' carries on the complaint of 139. 6, and 140. 14" (Dowden). 6. Their scarlet Ornaments. Cf. Ediv. III, ii. i : " His cheeks put on their scarlet Ornaments." The line occurs in the part of the play ascribed by some to S. See on 94. 14 above. 7. Seal\ifalse bonds oflove, Cf. V. and A. ^ll : ''Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft Ups imprinted, What bargains may I maket still to be sealing?" See also M,for M. iv. i. 5, and Af,ofV. ii. 6. 6. 8. Robli' d others' bedi revenues, etc. " Implying, probably, that the lady had received the attentions of other married men " (Tyler). 13. If thoti dost seek, etc. " If you seek for love, but will show none," etc. CXLIII. — "Perhaps the last two lines of 142 suggest this. In that sonnet Shakspere says * If you show no kindness, you can expect none from those you love ;' here he says * If you show kindness to me, I shall wish you success in your pursuit of him you seek ' " (Dowden). 4. Pursuit. Accented on the first syllable ; the only instance in S. Ctpursue in M. of V. iv. i. 298: " We trifle time ; I pray thee, pursue sentence." Walker gives many examples of pursuit ; as Heywood, Dutchess of Suffolk : " The eager pursuit of our enemies ;" Spanish Tragedy : "Thy negligence in pursuit of their deaths ;" B. and F., Wil at Sei'eral Weapons^ v. i : " In pursuit of the match, and will enforce her ;" Massinger, Fatal Daivry^ ii. 2 : " Forsake the pursuit of this lady's honour," etc. 8. Not prizifig. " Not regarding, not making any account of " (Malone). 13. IVii/. " Possibly, as Steevens takes it. Will Shakspere ; but it seems as likely, or perhaps mo're likely, to be Shakspere's friend * Will * [? W. H.]. The last two lines promise that Shakspere will pray for her success in the chase of the fugitive (Will ?), on condition that, if success- ful, she will turn back to him, Shakspere, her habe " (Dowden). CXLIV. — "This sonnet appears as the second poem in T/te Passion- ate Pilgrim with the following variations: in 2, *That like ;' in 3, *^ My better angel ;' in 4, * My worser spirit ;' in 6, *from my side ;' in 8, ''fair pride ;* in 1 1, * For being both to me ;' in 13, * The truth I shall not know ' Compare with this sonnet the 20th of Drayton's Idea : ' An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, • • • • • Which ceaseih not to tempt me to each ill ; « • • • • Thus am I still provok'd to every evil By that good-wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.' Compare also Astrophel and Stella, 5th Song : * Yet witches may repent, thou art far worse than they, Alas, that I am forst such evill of thee to say, I say thou art a Divill though clothM in Angel's shining: For thy face teropts my soule to leave the heaven for thee,' etc." (Dowden). l8o NOTES, 2. Suggest. Tempt. Cf. Oth. ii. 3. 358 : "When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.** See also Rieh. IL pp. 153, 198. 6. From my side. The quarto has ** sight ;" corrected from the P, P, Version. II. From me. Away from me. Gr. 158. 14. Till my bad angel^ etc. Dowden compares 2 Hen, IV. ii. 4. 365 : '• Prince Henry. For the women ? FcUstaff. For one of them, she is in hell already, and bums poor souls." We prefer Hanmer's reading " burns, poor soul " (see our ed. p. 172), but the allusion in burns is the .same in either case. CXLV. — "The only sonnet written in eight-syllable verse. Some critics, partly on this ground, partly because the rhymes are ill-managed, reject it as not by Shakspere " (Dowden). 13. I hate from hate, etc. "She removed the words I hate to a dis- tance from hatred ; she changed their natural import . . . by subjoining not you'''' (Malone). He compares R. of L. 1534-1537. Steevens would read " I hate — away from hate she flew," etc. ; that is, " having pro- nounced the words I /late^sh^ left me with a declaration in my favour." Dowden is inclined to accept Malone's explanation, but thinks the mean- ing may posslbly be, " from hatred to such words as / /late^ she threw them away." CXLVI. — 2. Press\i by these rebel pvivers^ etc. The quarto has "My sinfull earth these rebbell," etc. The corruption was doubtless due, as Malone suggests, to the compositor's inadvertently repeating the closing words of the first verse at the beginning of the second, omitting two syllables that belong there. Many emendations have been proposed: "Kool'd by those" (Malone), "Starv'd by the" (Steevens), "Fool'd by these " (D.), " Foil'd by these " (Palgrave), " Hemm'd with these " (Fur- nivall), "Thrall to these" (anonymuus), "Slave of these" (Cartwright), " Leagued with these " (Brae), etc. Press'd by is due to Dowden, and is on the whole as good a guess as any that has been made. Arrny is explained by some as =clothe. Massey thinks it also signi> fies " that in the flesh these rebel powers set their battle in array against the soul." Dr. Ingleby, in his pamphlet The Soule Arayedy 1872 (reprint- ed in Shakespeare : the Man and (he Book^ Part I., 1877), takes the ground that array (or aray) is =abuse, afflict, ill-treat. He gives several exam- ples of this sense from writers of the timc. It is not found elsewhere in S., but we have rnyed in T. of S. iii. 2. 54 and iv. i. 3, where Schmidt ex- plains it as "defiled, dirtied." We prefer this explanation to that which makes r7rr^/=cIothe — which seems to us forced and unnatural here — but we should prefer Massey's "set their battle in array against" to either, if any other example of this meaning could be found. Perhaps the turn thus given to the military sense is no more remarkable than the liberties SHAKESPEARES SONNETS, i8l S. takes with sundry other words ; and here the exigencies of the rhyme» might justify it. For the rebel power s and the outward walls^ cf. R. of L^ /22 : "She says her subjects with foul insurrection Have Satt er 'd down her consecrated wall, And by their mortal fault brought in subjection Her immortality, and made her thrall To liviiig death and pain perpetual." 10. Aggravafe. Increase. 11. Terms. Walker says: "In the legal and academic sense ; long periods of time, opposed to hours,^^ Cf. 2 Ifen. IV. v. i. 90 : " the wear- ing out of six fashions, which is four terms, or two actions." CXLVII. — " In connection with 146 : in that sonnet the writer exhorts the soul to feed and let the body pine, *within be fed,' *so shalt thou feed on Death ;' here he teils what the food of his soul actually is — the un- wholesome food of a sickly appetite. Compare Drayton, Idea^ 41, * Love's Lunacie'" (Dowden). 5. My reasoftf the physicians etc. Malone compares Af. W. ii. i. 5 : " though Love use Reason for his physician," etc. 7. Approve. Find by experience (that). Cf. Oth. ii. 3. 317 : "I have well approved it," etc. 8. Except. Object to, refuse. Paigrave explains thus : " I now dis- cover that desire which reason rejected is death ;" but Dowden, better, " desire which did object to physic." Physic did except repeats the idea in prescriptions not kept^ not that in reason . . . hath left me^ as Paigrave seems to suppose. 9. Past cure^ etc. Cf. L. L. L. v. 2. 28 : " past eure is still past care. As Malone notes, it was a proverbial saying. See Holland'' s Leaguer, a pamphlet published in 1632 : " She has got the adage in her mouth ; Things past eure, past care." IG. Evermore nnrest. Walker compares Coleridge, Remorse, v. i : "hopelessly deform'd By sights of evermore deformity." Sidney {Arcaäia, book v.) has " the time of my ever farewell approach- eth." CXLVIII. — " Suggested apparently by the last two lines of 147 : * I have thought thee bright who art dark ;' * what eyes, then, hath love put in my head ?' " (Dowden). 4. Censures. Judges. See Mnch Ado, p. 139 ; and for the noun (=judg- ment). Mach. p. 251, or Harn. p. 190. 8. Love*s eye^ etc. The quarto (followed by most of the editors) ends the line with " all mens : no." The reading in the text was suggested by Lettsom, and is adopted by D., the Camb. editors (" Globe " ed.), and H., and is approved by St. It assunies a play upon eye and ay. Lettsom afterwards proposed ** that " for love in the preceding line, and H. adopts that reading also. 13. O cunning Love! " Here he is perhaps speaking of his mistress, 26 M l82 NOTES, but if so, he identifies her with * Love,' views her as Love personifie4 and so the capital L is right " (Dowden). CXLIX. — " Connected with 148, as appears from the dosing lines of the two sonnets " (Dowden). 2. Pat take. Take part ; the only instance of the verb in this sense in S., but cf. the noun in i IJgtt. VI. ii. 4. 100 : " your partaker Pole " (see our ed. p. 149). 4. All tyrant. Vocative =-thou who art a complete tyrant. Malone conjectures " all triiant." 8. Preseut. Instant, immediate ; as very often. CL. — " Perhaps connected with 149 ; * worship thy defect ' in that son- net may have suggested ' with insiiflSciency my heart to sway * in this " (Dowden). 2. With iiisiifficiency^ etc. " To rule my heart by defects " (DowdenX 5. This becoffiing of things ill, Malone quotes A. and C. ii. 2. 243 : "for vilest things Become thetnselves in her," etc. 7. Warrantise of skilL Surety or pledge of ability. CLT. — Omitted by Palgrave. See on 20 above. Dowden remarks : "Mr. Massey, with unhappy ingenuity, misinterprets thus : *The mean- ing of Sonnet 151, when really mastered, is that he is betrayed into sin with others by her image, and in straying elsewhere he is in pursuit of her ; it is on her account.' " 3. Cheater. St. takes the word to be here —escheator, as in M. W. i. 3. 77 (see our ed. p. 138) ; but, as Dowden remarks, the more obvious mean- ing of rogue makes better sense. For amiss^ see on 35. 7 above. IG. Trittmphant prize, "Triumphal prize, the prize of his triumph" (Walker). 12. To Stande etc. Cf. Mercutio's speech in R. and J. ii. i. 22-29. CLII. — "Carries on the thought of the last sonnet ; she cannot justly complain of his faults since she herseif is as guilty or even more guilty (Dowden). 3. In act thy bed-vow brohe. See Addenda^ p. 188 below ; 9. Kindness. Affection, tenderness ; as in Alitch Ado, iii. i. 113 : " If thou dost love. my kindness shall incile thee To bind our loves up in a holy band." 1 1. To enlighten thee, etc. " To see thee in the brightness of Imagina- tion I gave away my eyes to blindness, made myself blind" (Dowden). 13. Perjur'd I. The quarto has "eye" for /; corrected by Sewell. CLIII.— Malone remarks: "This and the following sonnet are eom- posed of the very same thoughts differently versified. They seeni to have becn early essays of the poet, who perhaps had not determincd SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 183 which he should prefer. He hardly could have intended to send them both into the world." Herr Krauss (quoted by Dowden) believes these sonnets to be harm- less trifles, written for the gay Company at some bathing-place. Herr Hertzberg {Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft^ 1878, pp. 158-162) hasfound a Greek source for these two sonnets. He wriies ; " Dann ging ich an die palatinische Anthologie und fand daselbst nach langem Suchen im ix. Buche ('ETrt^tticrcica) unter N. 637 die ersehnte Quelle. ... Es lautet: T^d' vjto Totv irXaravovr airaX^ rerpvfxevoi i/irv^ €udt'v "EpitfC, vvynpati Aa/nrada iraptfefievot. Nv/u^ai d' äX\ti\r,S3. consecrate, 155. converted (=changed), 146. converted (=tumed away), 130. »31« convertest (rhyme), 131, 133. count (^account), 129. counterfeit (rhyme), 148. couplement, 136. courses (=years), 150. coward conquest of wretch's knife, 155. critic (— carper), 167. CHMtked ( — mali^ant), 150. curious (=fastidious), 143. damasked, 17 s- dateless(=endless), 140, 183- days outwom, 153. dead seeing, 153. dear religious love, 140. dearest(=mostintense), 143. debate (=:contend)f 132. debate (=contest), i6o. dedicated words, 157. defeat (=destroy), 151. defeated (=defrauded), 135. delves the parallels, 151. depart (transitive), 131. deserts (rhyme), 134, 146, 154, determinate, 159. determination (=end), 132. disabled (quadrisyllable), 1 52. discloses (=uncloses), 148. disi>ense with, 167. distillation (— peilfume), 130. doubting (=fearing), 155. dressings, 172. dullness (=drowsiness), 149. eager (=tart), 170. earth and water (elements), 145- edge of doom, 169. eise), 167. enlarged (=set free), 154. entitled in thy parts, 143. envy (accent), 175. ever-fixed mark, 169. evermore (adjective*, 181. except (=refuse), 181. exchange, 166. expense(=expenditure), 161, »75- , ^ expense (- loss), 140. expiate (= bring to an end), 136. extern, 173. eye of heaven, 135. fair( beauty), 134, 13s, 153, .58. fnlse in roUing (eyes), 135. fame (verb), 1 58* famished for a lock, 145. 19Ö INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED. favour (=countenance\ 168, 173- feil arrest, 155. fester (=rot), 161. fickle hour, 174. filed, 158. filled up bis line, 159. fitted, 170. five wits, 178. fleets (=fleetest), 135. flourish (noun), 151. foison, 148. f©nd (=foolish), 129. fond on, 158- fools of time, 172. for(=because), 143, 148, 165. for (=for fear of), 147. for fear of trust, 137. fore, 130, forlom (accent), 141. fortify (intransitive), 151. free (=liberal), 129. frequent (=intimate\ 169. from (=away from), i8j. fory (=inspiration), 163. gaudy (=gay), 128. gaze (=object of gaze), 13:). general of bot desire, 183. go (=:walkU 147. gored mine own tbougbts, 166. gracious ( =full of grace ), gracious (trisyllable), 176. greeing, 168. grind (=wbet), 167. gust (= taste), 168. babit (=bearing), 178. bappies, 130. beavy Saturn, 162. bell of time, 170. bis (=its), 131, 133, 155. 158. 174. bope of orpbans, 162. borse (plural), i6a bours (dissyllable), 130. bues (=Hugbes?), 135. hugely politic, 172. buiigry ocean, 152. busbandry, 132. I bäte from bäte away sbe tbrew, i8j. idle rank, 171. imaginary { =imaginative ), impnsoned absence of your liberty, 151. in their wills, 171. incertainties. 165. indigtstf 168. instinct (accent), 147. insults o'er, 166. intend, 139- invention ( =imagination ), M3. 155- jacks, 175. keeps (=guards), 176. key (pronundation), 147. kindness (=affection), 182. lace (=embellisb), 153. lame (figurative?), 142, 159. latcb (=catcb), x68. Jay (=lay on), 163. leamed's wing, 156. leese, 130. level (=aim), 169. like as, 150, 170. like of bearsay, 136. limbecks, 170. lines of life, 134. live (=subsist), 129. lively (=living), 183. iovely argument, 157. lover (masculine), 140. love's fresb case, 166. maiden gardens, 134. main of ligbt, 150. make faults, 141. makeless, 131. makest waste in niggarding, 128. many's looks, 160. map of days outworn, 153. marigold, 138. marjoram, 162. Mars bis sword, 149- master (=possess), 164. master-mistress of my pas- sion, 135. meetness, 170. melancboly (metre), 145. minion ( = darling), 174. misprision, 159. mixed with seconds, 173. moan the expense, 140. mock tbeir own presage, 165. modern (=ordinary), 158. moiety, 145. more and less, 161. motley(=jester), 166. niouming (play upon), 176. mouthed graves, 156- music (personal), 175. music to hear, 130. mutual render, 173. nativity (=:cbild), 150. new-fiingled, 160. no such matter, 159. noted weed, 155. obsequious (=devoted), 173. obsequious (=:funereal), 14 x o'er-grecn (verfo), 167. one reckoned none, 177. owe (=pos8ess), i3S> i54- pain (=panishment), 178. part bis function, 168. partake (=take part), 182. parts of me, 140. past eure, past care, 181. patent, 159. peace of you, 155. pcrfect'st, 147. perspective, 137. pboenix, 135. pointing (=appointing), 133. policy, tbat heretic, 173. poverty (concrete), 144. present (=instant), 182. pressed by these rebel pow- ers, etc., 180. pretty, 144. prevent (=antiapate), 163. pricked (=niarked), 136. prime (=spring), 163. prizing (=rregarding), 179. proud-pied April, 162. prove (=find), 154» 183. purge, 170. pursuit (accent), i79i qualify (= temper), 166. quest (=inquest), .145. question make, 133. quietus, 174. rack (=clouds), 141. ragged (=rugged), 130. rank (=sick), 170. rearward. 160. record (accent), 150, 173. recured, 14^. region (=air), 141. remembered ( =reminded )t 170. render (noun), 173. render (=surrender), 174. reserve (=preserve), 140- reserve tbeir cbaracter, 15& respect (=afrection), 143. respect ( =iconsideration \ »39» m6. resty, 163. retention, iji. revolt (=faithlessness), i6aw rondure, 137. ruinate, 131. ruined cboirs, 1 54. rutb (=pity), 176. i INDEX OF WORDS ÄND PHRASES EXPLAINED. raviil (.pelJin;!!. ly. riumphaiii pnze, rSin "'*'( "uMoi^'''^' i THE BORROWER WILL BE CHARGED AN OVERDUE FEE IF THiS BOOK IS NOT RETURNED TG THE LIBRARY ON OR BEFORE THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. 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